


Humming the Lights

by iammemyself



Series: Gaia: The Misophonia AU [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, I like EDM and couldn't shoehorn Riddler into it any other way, M/M, Medicinal Drug Use, Other, Scriddler, Self-Indulgent, Social Anxiety, alternate universe - DJ, basically Query Echo and Jonathan are a DJ group and Edward is their manager, black Riddler, riddlecrow, so we get into the Scrids in chapter two, that's not a tag but it is now, which I am putting as a tag for people who are looking for that sort of thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-14
Updated: 2017-07-28
Packaged: 2018-12-01 23:23:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 24,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11496954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iammemyself/pseuds/iammemyself
Summary: After years of gruelling work and disgruntled partnership, the DJ trio Misophonia has finally made it to a prime spot at one of the biggest EDM festivals with the help of their promoter.  It’s been a hard slog, but they all get what they want: the girls to be heard, Jonathan a major demonstration of his fear-inducing music, and Edward his prestige.  Or do they?  Query and Echo as ravers first conceptualised by Waiting4Codot.





	1. Chapter 1

## ‘Humming the Lights’

By Indiana

 

**Characters: Edward Nygma, Jonathan Crane, Query & Echo**

**Synopsis: After years of gruelling work and disgruntled partnership, the DJ trio Misophonia has finally made it to a prime spot at one of the biggest EDM festivals with the help of their promoter.  It’s been a hard slog, but they all get what they want: the girls to be heard, Jonathan a major demonstration of his fear-inducing music, and Edward his prestige.  Or do they?**

 

* * *

 “He’s not gonna answer.”

Edward frowned and pulled the bottom of the phone away from his mouth.  “I don’t recall asking.”

“Boss,” Echo said, leaning over the back of her seat as Query smiled at him from the rearview mirror, continuing with,

“When do we ever?”

He grimaced and threw the phone down into the back seat.  He supposed he was well aware of that by now.  It was a long drive from the hotel to the Speedway, and the closer they got the fewer bars his cellphone displayed anyway.  He dropped the device onto the seat next to him, folding his arms and peering in between the front seats.  “Are we only _now_ coming up to the defense base?”

“You need to relax.” Query tapped him on the nose with her index finger and he moved back into his seat so as to avoid a similar action from Echo.  

“We’re not going to be late, honey.”

“The good doctor, however…”

“Ladies,” Edward interrupted, putting up his hands, “we’ve been through this.  You _know_ why I can’t have you two on stage yourselves.  Once you have the time and _inclination_ to learn to beat match, I can put you in the booth.  Until then, he’s the DJ.”

Query and Echo he had discovered in a somewhat reputable club one night about three years previous. They were terrible DJs, he had known that as soon as he’d stepped into the room.  The general patronage of the club did not overly care as long as the drops kept coming, and many of them were too intoxicated to notice neither of the girls knew how to transition whatsoever.  But that wasn’t why Edward had stayed.  Edward had stayed because, even though most of the song changes were jarring and done without any skill whatsoever, a great deal of the productions were actually quite skillfully done.  They had a flavour, of a sort, that led him to believe they were done by the same person, and he needed to know just who that was.  

He had made his way up to them after the set and introduced himself as a manager seeking new talent, and as often happened when offering opportunities to female DJs they had rolled their eyes and started walking away.

“Yeah, heard that one before,” the one he came to know as Echo had said.  Echo was Han Chinese, about twenty pounds overweight, and most often kept her mid-length hair in dual braids of some fashion to accentuate the fact she looked several years younger than she was.  She told him later it was to sort out _all_ the creeps from the get-go.  Her partner, Query, was of Indian heritage, with dark russet skin, a strong nose, and hair that fell past her waist even when she too braided it. She had laughed over her shoulder and called him something he preferred not to repeat, and he’d nearly given up then and there.  But if he didn’t get this management career going soon he was going to have to give up, and that thought spurred him to say, “Will you at least tell me who produced the last song you played?”

The girls had paused and looked behind them.  “We did,” Echo had answered, after a questioning look at Query.  “Why?”

Edward had folded his hands together.  “I told you the truth.  I’m a manager, recruiting skilled producers such as yourself.  I can get you places.”

“What _kinds_ of places?” Query had asked after a pause. Edward had smiled at her.

“Out of here, to begin with. After that, who knows? Residencies.  The festival circuit.  Unless you’d _prefer_ to stay here…”  He had taken a step back, which caused the girls to exchange a look quickly.

“Maybe we’ll hear you out,” Echo had said.

“No guarantees,” Query had continued.  

“We don’t like where you’re going –“

“- we walk.”

“It’s a deal,” Edward had said calmly.  

He had met them for coffee a few days later and they had brought their laptop, and he had looked over a variety of their productions.  Most of them were outstanding, and more or less all of them leaning towards psy- and liquid trance, which puzzled him tremendously considering that was not a genre that forgave bad transitions.  He had removed the headphones and stared at the monitor for a long minute.

“I’m going to have to find you a DJ,” he had finally said.  They had both frowned.  They had both also been wearing some quite iridescent purple lipstick, which he came to learn was not unusual.  

“ _We’re_ DJs,” they had protested, in unison for once.  He’d shaken his head.

“You’re producers. Not DJs.  I can get you signed to a label with this.  But I can’t get you booked anywhere unless either of you can learn to mix properly.  And I doubt you will, because you haven’t in the five years’ worth of tracks I see here.”

Echo had made as though to stand up but Query had not moved.  She had entwined her hands together and said, “It’s true.”

Echo had crossed her arms across her chest.  “He doesn’t have to say it like that.”  Edward had pushed the computer away in exasperation.

“If you need coddled, you’re in the wrong profession.  You may just be in the wrong profession regardless.  Look.  I’ll do as much as I can with what I have.  But being a DJ on any _scale_ requires both quality sets _and_ quality productions.  You can’t go far with one or the other.”  There was _some_ money to be made off them, at any rate. They sounded good and _looked_ that way most of the time as well.  He’d find them a DJ, and if it went nowhere, he’d drop them.  Though it had seemed equally likely they had also pre-planned to drop _him_.

Neither of those things had happened.  Yet. He wouldn’t count out them throwing him out of the car, however.

As it had turned out, neither of them were particularly interested in the decks in the first place; Echo liked picking the songs and reading the crowd, but was not really a fan of _doing_ anything with this information.  They were mostly balking at the idea of someone else being the face of their work. He understood that.  But he cared about it a lot less than he cared about getting them booked, and getting them booked required finding someone who _was_ willing to figure out how to use Serato.

Edward had been at the end of his tether about this problem when he was sorting through his daily deluge of emails and discovered an interesting lecture at a university in Gotham City.  A doctor there was giving a talk on infrasound and its applications for the study of fear. Edward hadn’t known just yet what that meant, but he flew down to the city at the appropriate date and attended the lecture.  To his great surprise it was headed by a skeletal man with a swath of untended brown curls, but the _most_ surprising part was that he demonstrated how to add his infrasound to otherwise innocuous music… using DJ software.

He had found his DJ. And a little extra to boot. People _already_ went into clubs looking for a rush.  Usually drug-induced, but a little extra push from the music _itself_ wouldn’t hurt.  Edward had already started to imagine the permutations of a high _everyone_ got, even when they _weren’t_ indulging in illicit substances.  How easy would _that_ be to market... trance music that undeniably and unrestrainedly put everyone into a trance!  Perhaps not the one they were there for, but they would be.  Oh, they would be.

After the lecture, Edward had gone up to the man and introduced himself.  His answering handshake and terse, "Dr Crane" had been a little off-putting, but Edward needed this man.  He was the key Edward had been searching for.

"What if I told you," Edward had said, one elbow propped on the lectern, "I knew a way for you to experiment on hundreds, even _thousands_ , of people all at once.  That all of these subjects would be fully willing to take part.  That you'd even get _paid_ to do it."

Crane had scrutinized him for a long moment from behind his thick glasses, though he had looked away when Edward attempted to catch his eye.  "That sounds too good to be true."

Edward had rounded the lectern and stood directly in front of him.  "I'm a manager and promoter for two young ladies.  Very skilled, lots of personality.  You'll love them.  But they can't mix.  You won’t need to produce.  But if the three of you combine your strengths, we can all get what we want. You'll get to run your experiments as often as you like.  You just need to come and be their DJ."

"DJ," Crane had repeated, somewhat taken aback.  "You want me to abandon my work and the university to become a _DJ_?"

"You're not abandoning it!" Edward had protested.  "How many trials do they even let you run in a semester?  And all you get is reluctant college students looking for extra credit, right?  I can get you people of all ages, of all experiences, from around the world. Listen.  The girls know how to make music.  But they can't beat match.  They have no idea how to use the DJ software.  We need a DJ like you."  As well as his infrasound.

"And why me?" Crane had asked, unclipping the mic from his lapel.  "I can't be terribly marketable.  I can't say I know much about the industry, but I thought they were usually… younger."

"I need an edge," Edward had told him.  "This industry is hard to break into.  Skill doesn't do it alone anymore.  You need a gimmick or a lot of money."

"And my infrasound is your gimmick."

"In the beginning. That's what we need to get noticed. After that, we can go in any direction."

Crane had carefully slotted a pair of folders into his briefcase.  "And the young women?"

"Query and Echo. They have a few friends in clubbing circles that help them out for now, but -"

"Their names are Query and Echo?" Crane had asked incredulously, pausing in his actions. Edward had grimaced.  He hadn't been looking forward to that part.  

"They haven't told me their real names.  They mentioned that most people can't be bothered to pronounce them correctly anyway."

Crane had given him one long, appraising look, as though in attempt to guess where he stood on the matter. "And would Edward be _your_ real name?"

It wasn't the first time Edward had been asked that.

Edward had been subject to a lot of like observations he would rather have not heard over the course of his life.  A great deal of them being from his father, who cursed often the dark skin and high cheekbones Edward had inherited from his mother.  Edward had only once made the mistake of asking his father why he'd even been with a black woman if he hated them so much.  Once was enough to know that wasn't the message he was supposed to be taking from the spectrum of abuse his father deemed him deserving of. Edward knew well enough by now to understand most of what his father had said over the course of his life had been lies, but he still did end up wondering from time to time just what the circumstances of his conception had been.  In the end he always concluded it didn’t matter.  What did matter was proving, if only to himself, that his father had been terribly, terribly wrong.

Given the context, Edward was not pleased by but did not fault the question.  "It would."

Crane had then snapped closed his briefcase and placed his hand atop it.  "I have Southern roots.  I hold no pride in them and do my best to eschew that part of myself; however, I do not believe I can honestly say they will never influence my thoughts."

Edward hadn't liked that either, but he could respect that he had admitted it instead of listing off how progressive and culturally sensitive he was.  Edward had hooked his thumbs into his pockets.  "If you cross a line the girls will be more than happy to let you know."  As well as tell him where to go, while they were at it.  

But that he hadn't mentioned, and Crane had declared it fair, and after Edward had given the man his business card they had gone their separate ways.  For a while.  

"You'd think he could be on time just this once," griped Echo from the front seat. "How busy can he be with his fancy research all the way out _here_?"

Edward sighed and thought about how the girls had spent the entire plane ride here on their own laptop, trying to finish their own material to be played during the set, but he couldn't afford to be on one side or the other.  Being the manager also meant being the referee, and he agreed with her but it wouldn't do for him to disrespect Jonathan behind his back. Edward had to be impartial, and it had been angering the girls since the first time he had had to explain to them that Jonathan was late to half the group sessions because he had the equivalent of two full-time jobs and Edward had effectively asked him to take on a third one part-time, but to be honest it angered him as well.  It was disrespectful.  He knew Jonathan's own research was more important to him than this DJ gig, and he tried to respect it.  But it was difficult.  At those times when the girls were yet again pressing him to just find another DJ he would take a long breath, remind himself of all the mornings he had walked into the studio to find Jonathan asleep on the decks again from spending the only free time he had left on familiarising himself with the girls’ music library, and tell them they were keeping him at least until they made it to a major festival. He let the girls say what they needed to say, just as he let them tell him he was taking them for granted to his face, because it was better than not knowing and having it explode at the exact wrong time.  But he couldn't deny that he wanted to join them sometimes.  They were right.  It was disrespectful.  To all three of them, and especially the girls.  But they needed the edge Jonathan had.  The infrasound.  Edward didn't want to say he'd drop Jonathan as a client once the festival was over, since they would then have enough clout for him to find a better DJ... but he'd been considering it.  He could probably have done it right then, dropped Jonathan and replaced him with a new performer and no one would have noticed, but he hadn't wanted to risk it. Not on such a major stage and not with the chance that the new DJ's technical prowess wouldn't be enough to hook the crowd they needed to be declared a success.  There was also the fact that dropping Jonathan right before the goal line would be disrespectful in and of itself, and Edward could acknowledge Jonathan had put his fair share of time and effort into the group’s success. The girls had not liked him from the beginning, and he could have walked away at any time.  But he hadn’t.

Jonathan and the girls had gotten in many arguments, him and Query especially.  Query was a skilled producer but her real strength lay in reading the crowd.  Jonathan had, depending on his mood during the set, made pains to prevent her from queuing his tracks for him, which had led to a fight between _Edward_ and Jonathan as well as three set cancellations and a broken pair of headphones.  Jonathan had refused to come to the studio that week and Query and Echo had stated they would refuse to let him in, and Edward had spent great swaths of time sitting at his desk staring at the wall where he had one day hoped to have a framed poster declaring Misophonia the headliner _somewhere_.  They would have been lucky to get the opening act at Escapade at the rate they’d been going.

At the end of the week, Jonathan had come back and calmly stated that if the next set did not go smoothly, he was out, and the girls had been quite emphatic they really didn’t mind. Edward, in his fatigued exasperation, had told all three of them that if they did not _pretend_ to be professionals for seventy-five minutes that night, _he_ was out, and they could all fend for themselves.  Echo was all for that too, but it seemed the stars had come into alignment in just that moment because Jonathan and Query had agreed to give it a try.

And it had gone so very well that night.  Query read the crowd perfectly, and Jonathan’s mixing and infrasound combined kept more people in the room than Edward had ever seen any of his past DJs do. His search was over.  He just had to keep the three tied together for a couple of years, to fuel his own personal success story.  His next clients would not be so high-maintenance.

He managed to book them an increasing number of venues, both due to the secret edge the infrasound gave them and to the fact that Query and Jonathan actually worked well together when they weren’t fighting.  Edward had to field a few inquiries about why there were always a few clubgoers who left Misophonia shows in an ambulance, but Edward would merely reiterate for the hundredth time that one can warn people about taking illicit substances as often as they like, but they are still inclined to do them anyway and Misophonia was not at all liable for such a thing.  They ran into fewer and fewer snags over time, other than Jonathan inexplicably emailing Edward – and always a single email he never waited for a reply to – to cancel shows with little to no time to make alternate arrangements with the venues.  He’d done it about four times and Edward had had to put Query and Echo on alone, which never went too well, but with the festival approaching he hadn’t had the time to find a replacement DJ.  He had had to spend a great deal more time getting them on a stage at the festival at all.

And now Jonathan seemed to be cancelling.  At the worst possible time.

“You didn’t reach him, then,” Query said, interrupting his reverie.  Edward sighed and folded his arms.  

“I did not.”

“You don’t happen to have another DJ on speed dial,” suggested Echo, craning her neck in his direction again, and Edward rolled his eyes.

“I do not.”

“If he doesn’t show up, he’s ruined all of us.  You know that.”

The car was paused in the line of tour buses bringing thousands of hopped-up twenty-somethings to the festival grounds passing through the gate at the defense gate, which gave both girls time to stare back into the seat at him.  Edward was only half looking.  Most of his attention was on the wide arc lit of neon and smoke-shaded lights reaching into the empty desert sky.  He’d waited so long for this chance.  It couldn’t be ending like this.

“He’ll show,” Edward said, far too late.  “He won’t pass up an experiment this big.  He cares about that, if anything.”

“We hope so, boss.”

“Honestly.”

They actually sounded like they meant it.  For once.

It took another twenty minutes to get through the base and onto the festival grounds, and once the technicalities were taken care of Edward stepped aside for a cigarette.  Or three.  He was doing his best to quell the habit but stress brought it back like nothing else.  He was starting his third, watching Query and Echo consorting with the few artists and media and the like that were there, when a low voice behind him asked, “I hope you saved me one.”

He inhaled before he was ready due to surprise and had to take his cigarette out of his mouth until the coughing stopped.  He turned around indignantly, accidentally dropping the damn thing.  He stamped on it impatiently.  “Where the hell were you?”

Jonathan sat down on the ground by one of the struts for the stage structure, folding his hands into his sleeves.  Edward had borrowed a page from Gaia’s book and provided him a hooded robe so as to play the part of the mysterious, mystical DJ, but he hadn’t asked him to wear it here in the desert.  Edward himself had had to eschew his usual three-piece green suit for a sweater vest, dress shirt, and khakis.  The colour contrast between his skin and his favourite colour was usually something he preferred to play up, but the fact that no one could see him in the dark combined with the extreme heat spurred him to make the switch.  “I didn’t know taxicabs weren’t authorised to go through the defense base.  I got taken the long way around.”

Edward decided that was a semi-reasonable excuse and offered him the box of cigarettes.  Jonathan took one and Edward sat down beside him, handing him a lighter as well.  Edward waited for him to settle into it before admonishing, “You should have just come with us.”

“I should have,” Jonathan admitted.  He did not elaborate, which Edward respected.  Jonathan had a habit of not trying to justify when he’d made a mistake that Edward quite honestly should have adopted himself.  He would merely acknowledge it and move on.  But he was still annoyed Jonathan had elected _not_ to come with them.

“Well, you had us all preparing for a no-show,” Edward told him, to drive the point home.  Jonathan flicked the ash off the cigarette.  Not that they could have _actually_ prepared for that.

“Hm?  Have you found your replacement DJ already?”

Edward snapped his head around.  “What?”

“It wasn’t exactly a secret, Edward.”  He pitched the end of his cigarette into the dark.  His hand seemed oddly unsteady for the moment Edward saw it.  “Or it seems as though you thought it was.  No.  That was the deal, was it not?  I help you until you make it, and in return I get to do experiments on a massive scale. This is the end of the deal.”

Well, that was true.  That _was_ what Edward had been planning.

But Jonathan wasn’t supposed to _know_ about it.  Now Edward was having a rare flash of conscience. If Jonathan had already been aware Edward planned to replace him, he’d been doing a less than stellar job at being his manager.  But in Edward’s defense, Jonathan did not overly act as though he cared for the job.

“So you did decide to show.”

“Welcome.”

Edward looked up to see the girls standing indignantly over them.  Both were wearing a mermaid-style crop top, each slightly different, with black high-waisted shorts and some sort of platform sneakers Edward did not recognise from any store.  Jonathan pushed his hands back into his sleeves and said nothing.

When the DJ onstage just then finished, Query had already made her way up there in eager anticipation. Edward did not see Jonathan follow and looked around for him to discover he hadn’t gotten up.

“Jonathan.”  What was he up to _now_?

The other man nodded and stood slowly, making his way to the stage as though something he didn’t want to see were up there.  This couldn’t just be reluctance to do the job, could it?  It seemed an extreme reaction, especially when this was what they’d been working towards all this time.

Edward remained at the back end of the stage, which meant he couldn’t see past the decks.  The lights were all down, as per usual at the opening of Misophonia shows, and it was so still and quiet even the hum of the speakers behind him were drowned out by the distant bass from the other six stages across the Speedway.  Edward’s eye flicked to the timer.  It was at thirty seconds and counting.  They had sixty minutes.  Edward’s hand went to the headset around his neck, the other removing his hat so he could flick the band over the top of his head.

“Query!  What’s going on?”

“ _I don’t know, boss.  Just froze right up._ ”

His _DJ_ had _stage fright_?   _Now_?  Of all the – he ground his teeth together and was about to tell Query to just do the set herself, success be damned – nothing would be worse than having to walk off now, nothing! – but then Query picked up Jonathan’s headphones and put them into his hand.  He still didn’t move for a good ten seconds after that, but then he pushed back the hood and removed his glasses, which he had to do in order to fit the headphones properly over his ears.  When he finally started playing, the set had begun two and a half minutes late, but Edward didn’t care.  He was too busy deciding whether he was going to tell Jonathan they were parting ways or if he was just going to conveniently leave his boarding pass someplace he couldn’t find it.

They were forty-five minutes in when everything went dark and quiet again, until the crowd began to express their… dignified disapproval.  Edward pressed his hands into his face.  This was a disaster.  He was ruined.  They were all ruined.  He wasn’t just going to relocate Jonathan’s boarding pass; he was going to murder Jonathan and relocate his body.    

_“Boss, you need to see this.”_

That made it all sound _much_ worse.

Edward scrambled up the back of the stage and turned to look at the videoboard Query was pointing at. It was now displaying… a bat, maybe?   Stylised?  Jonathan was staring at it in abject horror.

“Do you know what that is?” Edward demanded, grabbing his arm.  Jonathan instantly stiffened and it was so unnerving Edward let go.

“It’s Batman,” Jonathan whispered.

“Batman?  The vigilante?  He followed us all the way here?”  How did _Batman_ have jurisdiction in _Las Vegas_?

“We’re gone, boss,” Query shouted, leaping off the stage.  “You got five or you find your own ride.”

“Why is he even here?” Edward asked Jonathan, seeing as he might have an answer.  Jonathan’s eyes were glued to the screen.

“Not everyone leaves our sets with a stable mind.”

He’d been following the hospital admissions associated with Misophonia shows, then.  Damn.  He took Jonathan’s arm again.  “Let’s go. We don’t want to get stuck here.”

Jonathan shook his head, finally looking at him.  “No. If we all go he will merely chase us all down.  I am the face of this and they will be somewhat lenient on me.  You will not be so fortunate.”  He was breathing incredibly hard and he looked even paler beneath the hood than usual, but his words seemed sure.  Edward took a step back.

Jonathan, suddenly, reached forward and pressed a hand to Edward’s shoulder.  It was so cold Edward could feel it even through the dry desert heat. Their eyes met, and Edward inexplicably _knew_ Jonathan was afraid. Something about this Batman had terrified him to the quick, but he was staying anyway.  He knew what the stakes were and he was rising to them.

He _had_ chosen the right DJ after all.

“Good luck,” he found himself saying, though he believed in no such thing, and Jonathan seemed to nod. Edward then jumped off the stage and made his way through the throng as quickly as he could without looking too much in a hurry.  He needed to get to the car before the girls took off, but getting caught along the way would not help matters.

He made it to the lot just as Query was pulling around to exit, and he considered berating them but knew that might get him tossed out entirely.  Instead he slammed the car door shut and pressed himself into the backseat.  Both girls looked behind them.

“We can’t wait another five –

“ – for him to show up.”

Edward swallowed despite his strain-induced dry throat.  “He’s not.”

Query frowned at him via the rearview mirror.  “He has something better to do?”

“We had to leave someone behind to take the fall.  He volunteered.”  

He didn’t think he had to explain to them what that meant.

“You know, boss,” Echo said, as they made it onto the road that wound through the desert, “we’ve been thinking.”

“We know what our next gig should be.”

“Mm,” Edward said, unsure why they were discussing that now and how on earth they were able to read each other’s minds.  

“Turns out we don’t need a new DJ.”

“Ours is fine.  Other than the criminal record.”

“But we don’t judge -”

“- for things like that.”

“How generous of you.” Why was he thinking so distractedly about the shoulder Jonathan had laid his hand on?  About the way his eyes, so fearful and yet resolved, had set onto Edward’s?  What had that even meant?    

“So.  Our next gig should be – “

“ – we snatch our DJ back.”

“You want to break into a police station and kidnap a criminal.”  Exactly the sort of wild and outlandish thing people should do when they were trying to lay low.

“A _DJ_ , boss.”

“Our DJ.”

“He can have the stage – “

“- we’ll keep Beatport.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“We know it’s not the first time,” they declared in unison, and he had to admit it wouldn’t be.  

“Can we at least get out of sight of the _festival_ before we start discussing jailbreak plans?”

“You got it.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s note
> 
> So a few things to talk about for this fic.
> 
> In most of my other fics I usually just describe Jonathan physically, mostly to establish he’s a cold bastard inside and out mostly, and everyone else maybe I’ll give you a hair colour and some other physical feature and let you go ham in your imagination. This one, as we can see, I got specific. I have a bit to say about that.
> 
> Query I made Indian in honour of my best friend. He’s a guy but I don’t actually put too many guys into my fics and if I’m gonna make someone related to my BFF they can’t just be a writeoff NPC. Indians have also been some of the kindest and hardest-working people I have ever met. So Query is Indian for that reason. My BFF is also pretty dark-skinned and her dark russet is an approximation of his skin. There are also very very few good Indian DJs. The best one I know of is KSHMR and I mean he’s very good but he was also born in the United States.
> 
> Echo I made Han Chinese because when you see an Asian person in the media, especially comics, they’re often ambiguously Asian, y’know, they don’t tell you what country they’re from they’re just like ‘they’re Asian!’ and that’s that. Asian women are also stereotypically very slender and young-looking, so Echo is a little overweight and she does look young but with a purpose. 
> 
> I know that, in the comics, their names are Nina and Diedre, but in the comics they’re both white ladies and for this verse Query and Echo are both immigrants as adults and those are not appropriate names for them. I added the part about people not being able to pronounce their real names because I used to work in a Tim Hortons which hired a lot of Indian immigrants and there was one guy by the name of Madhav whom everyone just called whatever they wanted. I’m not joking, they made up names for him and expected him to respond. When I asked him about it he said myself and his girlfriend were the only ones who ever pronounced his name right in Canada. Which is... not cool. Where I work now we have a guy named Kaivan and we had a woman who didn’t even bother to learn his name. She just would shout ‘hey’ at him when she wanted his attention. But he’s still around and she’s gone so sometimes good things happen.
> 
> As for Edward, I had a discussion with an anonymous person on Tumblr who said the following:
> 
> “White riddler is canon, you're not going against the norm by making him a different brand of white. There is only so many people who make content for black!riddler, including writing and art and even short headcanon snippets. The POC part of the fandom has been leading it, and it really isn't much content, it's about a handful.”
> 
> To which I said:
> 
> “There are black people in Canada.
> 
> And am I, a white person, allowed to do black Riddler? Or is someone going to come into my inbox and tell me to get back in my lane? I’ve stated before I would have no problem doing Riddler as another race, other than the fact that it’s very easy to step on toes and not recover.” 
> 
> I decided I would own up to what I said, and just do it. The anon implied to me that this is what some people need and if it means that much to them I’ll do it, but it also means I might need a poke back in the right direction. I tried not to go too far into how Edward experiences being black but as he is my lens here I couldn’t entirely avoid it. As in all my verses, Edward is Canadian, in this one half Caribbean-Canadian on his mother’s side. Any other backstory for anyone in this verse I haven’t worked out yet.
> 
> The title is from an Armin van Buuren song called ‘Humming the Lights’. The festival they’re at is called Electric Daisy Carnival. It’s in Las Vegas and is one of the biggest EDM festivals in the world. When I started the Misophonia AU it was about two or three years ago and I originally had them (just Jonathan and Edward) go to Ultra in Miami, but I’ve been to EDC twice and it has my heart so I changed that. Escapade is an EDM festival in Ottawa, and I live here, so that was just to amuse myself.
> 
> The difference between a producer and a DJ is that a producer makes the music and a DJ mixes it; most producers are also DJs, but not all are good at both. The top 100 DJs generally do both because to make money as a DJ you have to be able to make music and tour it while also having your own label. So Echo is really good at producing, Query is really good at reading the crowd and Jonathan is really good at beat matching so all three of them work together to be the equivalent of one really good DJ.


	2. Part Two

Part Two

 

 

“Jonathan!  I’m glad you’re here.  I need to talk to you for a minute.”

It was a few months after the set at Electric Daisy Carnival, and things were more or less back to how they’d been beforehand.  Other than the fact that it was a great deal easier for Edward to book Misophonia in places worth playing in, that was.  He was also working on expanding his list of clients and was doing fairly well.  The best consequence from the festival, however, was the fact that Query, Echo, and Jonathan had finally figured out how to work together consistently.  He no longer heard anything about replacing Jonathan, though he had come to the conclusion the man couldn’t be replaced.  He’d been late to the set, yes, but the YouTube views on it were on par with brand-name DJs and about the only complaints he’d seen were that Misophonia had ripped off Gaia.  Which they had, a little.  But it was better to rip off Gaia than it was to put a man in his late thirties on stage wearing wrinkled plaid and faded blue jeans.  Nobody wanted to see that.

There was still the matter, however, of Jonathan’s freezing up onstage and the fact that he’d seemed incredibly shocked when Edward and the girls had come to retrieve him from the hospital room in Las Vegas he’d been deposited in.  The administration at the hospital, though suspicious at first that the trio was part of some sort of gang and was a little too keen on removing one of their members, allowed them to take Jonathan back to the hotel after they explained what they were really doing there.  As it turned out, Batman had been unable to convince the Nevada authorities on-site at the festival that music alone could terrorise anybody, especially since the infrasound was undetectable to the human ear.  They _had_ turned around to discover Jonathan had gone unconscious and had immediately sent him off-site for blood tests and an IV.  Jonathan had gone with them when they came for him, though not entirely willingly, and had not said a word to any of them until a week later, when he had to ask Query for a new pair of earplugs.  He’d been subject to a lot of teasing for that one.          

Jonathan followed him into his office and Edward stayed back to close the door.  Jonathan stood uncertainly in front of the desk, and Edward sat in one of the chairs there, gesturing for the other man to do the same.  He looked… neater.  Not too much so; his hair was still snarled and his clothes still wrinkled, but as though he’d tried to make a dent in both problems at least.

“So,” Edward said, leaning over and picking up one of the pens on his desk with which to occupy his hands, “I wanted to talk to you about your future as the DJ of Misophonia.”

Jonathan opened his mouth but said nothing.  Edward clicked the pen a few times.

“You seemed surprised when we picked you up from the hospital.  Any particular reason why?”

“I thought you’d take that opportunity to replace me,” Jonathan said.  “It would have been convenient.”

“Oh, I have no intention of replacing you,” Edward said, leaning back and propping his ankles against the desk.  As he did so he noted Jonathan’s startled glance.  “I just wanted to discuss details.  Preferred travel arrangements, the kinds of atmosphere you dislike, your new pay grade, that kind of thing.  Though I did want to know,” he mused, unscrewing the bottom end of the pen, “what happened that night at EDC.”

“What happened?”

Edward placed the piece he’d unscrewed on the desktop.  “You took your time getting the set started.”

Jonathan laced his fingers together so hard his knuckles looked to be bloodless.  “I ah… have a medical condition.”

Edward paused in unscrewing the other side of the pen.  “Oh?”

“Anxiety,” Jonathan answered.  “I… it was not an easy night for me.”

Edward put the pen down and removed his legs to the floor.  “Tell me about it.”

“It was why I took a taxi to the festival in the first place.  All three of you would have been…”  He was starting to have difficulty breathing.  “All the taxi driver cared about was my having enough money to pay the fare.”

“All right,” Edward said softly.

“I didn’t mean to leave as late as I did, but I spent… almost every minute in my hotel room trying to decide if it was even worth showing.  You’ve wanted to replace me for months now.  I was becoming… physically ill.  I was so anxious that I had been replaced but I could not call and ask.  I just… all I could do was pace.”

“But you made it to the festival,” Edward said.  Jonathan might have nodded.  He was so tense it was difficult to tell.

“Of all the things I was afraid of… disappointing you was… what I feared most.”

Edward folded his own hands together.

“I spent the whole journey there convincing myself not to ask the driver to take me back to the hotel.  I didn’t want to go through the gate, or walk through all of those people to get to the stage.  If I hadn’t known where the stage was I _would_ have left.  I can usually manage my anxiety but this festival… I didn’t expect that.  I thought I would be fine when I found you at the stage and I cannot tell you the _relief_ that came over me when I realised I had not gone through all of that for nothing.  But then I saw something _worse_ than the fact that I had had to walk through thousands of people: I was going to have to _play_ for them.  I couldn’t.  I couldn’t even breathe.”

He sounded so utterly disappointed in himself that Edward really wished he could turn back time and know about all of this beforehand.  He never would have put Jonathan on that stage if he’d known.  Edward was disappointed in _himself_ , to be honest.  What kind of manager didn’t know this about his client?

Jonathan’s breathing was increasingly unsteady, and he was markedly paler than usual.  His hands were clenched together so hard Edward was certain they were nearly numb, and his hairline was dark with sweat.  Even just _recounting_ the festival was a struggle for him.  The festival that Edward, Query and Echo had been looking forward to and had been incredibly happy to be at.  It had been Jonathan’s worst nightmare, and none of them had even the slightest idea.

“When Query gave me my headphones I was able to ground myself.  I could close it all out again.  And then… Batman showed up.  He… appeared right after you left.”

“What did he do?”

“I don’t know.”  Jonathan leaned forward and put his head on the desk.  “I… I couldn’t take any more.  I fainted.”

“I’m sorry it got so bad,” Edward said sincerely.

“Oh, it got worse!” Jonathan proclaimed into the desk.  “I dreamt Query just left the headphones on the decks and everyone just…”  He brought his arms around his head.  “There were so many people and they were all so _disappointed_.”

“Jon – “

“I woke up in a hospital room, vomiting.  Except I couldn’t do that either.  I had spent the days before the festival working myself up and there was nothing left in my body because I hadn’t been able to eat.  And then you came to the hospital.  I didn’t think you were real.  I couldn’t tell if I was conscious or not.  I didn’t even care.  I just wanted it to stop.  I don’t mean to sound dramatic, but… if there had been an option then to vanish from the earth entirely, I would have taken it.”

“Jonathan.  You should have _told_ me about this.  I would _never_ have put you on stage if I’d known what it would do to you.  I would rather have gone up there and done it myself.”  Jonathan’s entire body was shivering from just the _memory_ of all of it. 

“You already doubted me.  I knew you would have to keep convincing Query and Echo over and over again to put up with me.  I didn’t want you to know that was the very reason I was late so often.  You didn’t want me there.  They didn’t want me there.  And I didn’t want to go.”

Edward got up on the desk and put his hand on Jonathan’s shoulder.  “Jon.  I needed to know all of this.  You should not have kept it to yourself.”

“I’m sorry,” Jonathan said, very quietly.  “This… it has lost me so many opportunities in my lifetime.  I didn’t want the one that walked up to me to slip away.”

“And I… I also apologise,” Edward said, not without difficulty.  “It’s obvious I didn’t maintain neutral ground between you three.  As your manager, that’s unacceptable.  You should never have felt unwelcome, especially not because of me.”

He gave Jonathan a moment to do whatever it was he did to calm himself, then said, “If you want out, you’re free to go back to the university.  I’m not trying to torture you.  If this is too much for you, don’t worry about it.  I’ll find a new DJ.” 

Jonathan sat up, removing his glasses and pressing one hand into his eyes.  “Actually I… quit my job at the university.”

“But your research was so important to you.”  It was the only reason he’d ever agreed to being a DJ in the first place.

“Do you know why I was doing that research,” Jonathan asked, faintly.

“I don’t believe you’ve mentioned it.”

“Because people refuse to understand that anxiety is not something that can be switched off.  They don’t understand when I cannot do something; they tell me to just do something implausible as though that will magically right my brain, and try to force me into it.  I wanted to come up with a method to _force_ people to understand.  And I did.  The infrasound.  It cannot be detected by the human ear but can be used to create anxiety in any situation.  It was exactly what I needed to make my point.”

“So why abandon it now?”

Jonathan looked quietly at the desk for a moment.

“Because it was supposed to make _me_ feel better, in the beginning.  It was supposed to be an outlet for my frustration.  But spending all of my time with it and my anger… it wasn’t helping.  But the music did.  Just the music, by itself.” 

He looked better; not great, but he seemed to be more or less his usual self again.  His breathing was back to normal.  “So you’re just going to focus on the DJing?”

“If you’re not replacing me, I would like that.”

“I don’t want to replace you,” Edward said.  “I’ll admit it.  I did.  But you have to understand that it was based on my not knowing about your situation.  I would have dealt with things quite differently.  I’m not trying to say this was your fault.  I accept responsibility for what happened.  But it was important for me to know that, and I didn’t.”

Jonathan nodded.  “I don’t think there’s anything else like that I need to tell you.”

Edward leaned over the back of his desk and pulled open one of the drawers.  “Misophonia isn’t under contract, so you can still leave at any time.  I’m not going to have you sign it – or anything – but I do need to go over it with you.  Expectations for you and obligations from me and such.”  He removed a folder from the drawer and opened it, taking out two copies of the contract.  Putting the folder aside, he pulled up his pantlegs and offered Jonathan one set of the papers.  “Sooner we get started, the sooner I can let you go.”

Jonathan looked at him directly for the first time.  “It takes as long as it takes.”

 

//

 

Edward did not have a tremendous amount of free time, and what he did have he usually liked to use on himself, but over the next several weeks he tried to drop by the studio more often to ensure things were going well.  He knew Query and Echo could manage just fine on their own and did not really require his input, but if the girls didn’t know about Jonathan’s anxiety and its influence on his behaviour then he really did need to do some personal observation now and again.  He always called Echo the day before he planned on coming by, in case he unintentionally interrupted something important, and this time she hadn’t hung up after he’d said that.  He’d frowned and asked what she wanted.

“I kind of want to do an experiment,” she had said. 

“An experiment?”

“I always tell the other two when you call, right?  You know something weird?”

“What.”

“When I tell Jon that, he always… I dunno.  He puts a little more effort into getting dressed in the morning, y’know?”

That did sound odd.  “I’ll ask him about it.”

When he got to the studio the first thing he did was wait for Jonathan to finish whatever he was doing and then send him into the office for a talk.  Jonathan, as usual, did not look very enthusiastic but did as he was asked regardless.

“All right,” Edward said, closing the office door and sitting on the desk.  “How are things going?”

“Fine,” Jonathan answered, clasping his hands together.  “I have nothing to tell you, really.”

“It was mentioned to me you put a little more effort into your appearance when you know I’m coming,” Edward said.  Jonathan glanced up quickly but kept quiet.  “I don’t care if you come here in your pyjamas.  There’s no need to impress me at this point.”

Jonathan opened his mouth, then seemed to think better of it.  Edward frowned.  “What?”

“Well, there… there is.  A need.”

“What for?  I already said I’m not…”  It suddenly dawned on him the only other reason Jonathan would do such a thing, if not for fear of being replaced.  “I don’t think so.”

“I can’t say I didn’t expect that,” Jonathan said, twisting his thumbs together.  “Might I ask where the line was drawn?”

How did he put it as gently but as clearly as possible.  “You’re white, Jonathan.”

Jonathan’s brow creased, though he was still looking at the floor.  “I don’t understand.”

“And… that’s kind of the point.  You don’t understand.  And you don’t understand what you don’t understand.  Until you know what I’m talking about, I can’t… that can’t happen.”  He didn’t know why he felt so bad about saying it.  It wasn’t like he’d never said it before.

“If… if that was all, Edward, I really need to pretend this conversation didn’t happen.”  Jonathan stood up, and Edward nodded.

“It’s forgotten.”

He was well aware that both of them knew that was a lie.

 

//

 

Edward did not have a whole lot of time to spend anywhere near the studio in the coming weeks, so his involvement with Misophonia mostly had to do with the social media accounts he was managing for them.  And social media was very, very vocal about the fact that he had had to cancel three consecutive sets because his DJ was texting him at the last minute and saying he couldn’t show.  Edward understood the anxiety thing, or at least he thought he did.  The fans, unfortunately, were not so forgiving.

“All right,” Edward said, stepping into the studio office the next afternoon.  Jonathan was sitting in the office chair in front of the desk, and instead of seating himself behind it Edward sat in the chair next to his, propping his feet up on the desk.  Jonathan was staring very steadily at the desk, and Edward did have to admit he’d chosen a very nice mahogany piece.  But that wasn’t what he was here for.  “Three sets in a row, Jonathan?”

Jonathan refocused on his entwined fingers.  “I am… having difficulty believing any of you wants me to be here.”

Edward was unsure of what to say to that.

“I’m not asking for your commiseration or to convince me otherwise.  I don’t know if you even can.  It was difficult enough for me to come here.  I’m not able to perform right now.  I need time to gather myself again.”

Well, that put Edward in a bind.  He wasn’t _heartless_ ; he wasn’t going to try to talk Jonathan into working or guilt-trip him over it.  But the cancellations tarnished the reputations of the group.  Jonathan was not just hurting himself, he was hurting Query and Echo too.  Even if he managed to banish his anxiety by tomorrow night, would he even have the _strength_ to play?  His face was more drawn and haggard than usual, and if he hadn’t been sleeping he probably hadn’t been eating, either. 

“I’m sorry,” Jonathan said, and Edward looked over at him.  He realised Jonathan was pressing his hands together in order to disguise the shaking.  He wondered how many times he’d missed that before now.  “I know that does nothing but it’s all I have to offer right now.”

Edward pulled his legs off the desk and leaned forward, clasping his own hands over his knees.  “Look.  I can’t say I’m happy about this.  If it were just you, it would be different.  But the girls too are affected by this.  We don’t want people to be Googling Misophonia and coming up with articles about how often we cancel.  That said, I’m not going to force you into anything.  If you could do it, you would.”

Jonathan finally looked at him, brows knit.  “You aren’t upset?”

Edward stood, pushing his hands into his pockets.  “If you don’t feel well, you don’t feel well.  Me getting upset isn’t going to change that.”  In front of him, anyway.  Smoothing over stuff like this was part of his job as a promoter, but that didn’t mean he liked it.  “If you’re not up to it tomorrow, we’ll have Query go on.  She’s… getting better.”

“No she isn’t,” Jonathan said.  Edward laughed and gave his shoulder a shove.

“I’m not giving her your job,” he reassured.  “But four cancellations is too many.  Someone has to go up tomorrow, and it’s not going to be me.”

Jonathan removed his glasses and rubbed at his eyes.  Edward hitched himself up on the desk.  “Are you having problems with the other parts of your life?”

Jonathan paused.  “I’m sorry?”

“Is it your home life that’s strengthening your anxiety?”

“Oh.”  He slid the glasses back on with great care.  “No.  This just… happens, sometimes.  Where I feel as though my merely leaving the house sets the world onto a course for disaster.  It isn’t… _caused_ by anything.  My mind just gets away from me sometimes.”  He swallowed.  “But, ah… your coming here to talk to me, it… it was helpful.”

“I’m glad,” Edward said, sincerely. 

“I spend a lot of time convincing myself my existence is negligible,” Jonathan said, pressing the fingers of his right hand into that knee.  “And so while it was difficult to come here, I… it was… I needed it.”

“The girls aren’t making you feel unwelcome, are they?”  He’d have to have a talk with them if that were the case.  Jonathan shook his head.

“I am the third wheel there, that’s all.  It’s not their fault.”

This reminded Edward of the fact he was in a similar position.  He didn’t like it.  To distract himself from that thought he said, “If you need to talk you can always call.  I’ll get back to you when I can.”

Jonathan shook his head.  “I can’t use the phone.  Even texting is difficult.  I appreciate the sentiment, but it’s just one of those things I have to deal with.”

That upset Edward more than it should have, but he didn’t show it.  He just nodded and changed the subject.

 

//

 

To Edward’s surprise, he dropped by the venue after a meeting that had run late to find that Jonathan _had_ managed to perform that night after all.  He stood behind the booth with Echo, arms folded.

“He was late, but he showed up,” Echo muttered.  Edward did not comment.  He did not have the energy just then to repeat to her that Jonathan had a medical problem, and she wasn’t interested in hearing it anyway.  He probably wouldn’t have been either, in her position.

When the other two came off the stage twenty minutes later, Jonathan paled upon seeing him and stopped in folding his hood back.  Query smiled at him on her way over to Echo, where they proceeded to disappear together as they usually did.  Edward extended his hand, which Jonathan stared at.  When Jonathan finally closed his hand over Edward’s, he noted his palm was rough, probably from lack of care.  “Good job,” Edward told him.  Jonathan pulled his hand back and hid it in his sleeve.  Ignoring this, he continued, “How did you sleep last night?”

“I… not well.”  Jonathan was squinting a little.  “Why?”

Edward gestured for him to follow and started walking out of the venue, nodding to the next artist and his entourage as they passed.  “I’m taking you back to my condo.”

“What?”  It was almost the loudest he’d ever heard the man.  He paused to look behind him.

“You made the cancellations because you couldn’t help believing nobody wanted you around, right?”

“Yes.”

“I can’t imagine spending all your time alone helps that any.”  Especially if he was having trouble sleeping.  Spending hours a night staring at the wall, wondering about the worth of your existence, was not fun for anybody, even when they didn’t have anxiety.  “I have a spare room.  You can sleep there tonight.”

Jonathan followed him out to the parking lot, and quite hesitantly climbed into Edward’s car.  Edward tried to be patient when he realised Jonathan kept glancing at his truck.  “No one is going to steal that thing.”

“I know,” Jonathan said.  “I hardly even want it.”

Edward couldn’t help laughing at that.

Edward’s condo was very open-concept, and minimalist; he’d always liked the aesthetic of modernity it gave off.  His furniture was sparse and clean, and his decorations few.  About the only one of any meaning was a plaque, white text on black glass, that he kept on his desk.  ‘The minute you think you’re greater than the music… you’re finished’ it said.  It was a reminder not to let his ego get the best of him, because it certainly did try.

Once Jonathan had taken his shoes off Edward showed him to the guest room, which contained all the basic furniture but more for appearance than anything.  The dresser, closet, and nightstand were all empty.  The bed was dressed in a fairly quality purple sheet set and there was an LED clock that glowed blue on the lowest setting atop the bedside table.  He’d never really planned on having anyone _stay_ in the bedroom.  It was not the most inviting place to be.

Jonathan was holding his robe in something of a stupefied confusion, and Edward gestured towards the dresser.  “Put it anywhere.  It doesn’t matter.”

“You live here?” Jonathan asked, doing as directed, but not much else.  Edward frowned.

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“It’s like… an upscale hotel room.  A penthouse.”

Edward leaned back against the dresser.  “A guy’s gotta treat himself right.  And living somewhere that looks like a penthouse certainly does that.”  He stepped towards the doorway.  “Hopefully it helps you sleep better.”

“Hopefully,” Jonathan repeated uneasily.  He was staring at the bed as though he thought it were an apparition.  Edward shook his head and left, sitting down at his desk.  He stared at the plaque for a few moments.  To allow himself luxury but not get caught up in it… it was a struggle.  He had become a manager because the discovery of house music had made his life worth living on many an occasion, but he was no musician.  He could work a man over, but being a DJ?  He’d known from the start it wasn’t his calling.  He’d worked hard with the skills that he had, and now he was in the process of making it.  He honestly didn’t even need Misophonia anymore; he had far more promising producers lined up that required far less of his attention.  And they were a lot more profitable.  He had managed to procure a quite incredible Métis DJ who brought an admirable infusion of his culture to his sound.  He was doing well, and Edward would have no trouble promoting him.  By all accounts he should have dropped Misophonia and moved on.  They weren’t in a contract.  It was all verbal, and they weren’t obligated to continue working together.  But as odd as it sounded they almost felt… familial, by now.  Not that he really knew anything about _that_.

It was close to three am and he needed to sleep himself.  He was about to head to his bedroom when he noticed Jonathan had not even turned the light off.  Despite the fact that Jonathan had already made his feelings clear and probably would not mind if Edward entered the room while he was asleep, he felt uneasy about it anyway.  Jonathan was intensely private, and while Edward understood it was no doubt largely not by choice, it still didn’t feel right to impose.

He reached into the room with the intention of just easing down the dimmer when he paused upon seeing the man.  By all observation it seemed he had just collapsed and instantly fallen asleep right where he’d lain on the bed.  His legs were halfway on the floor, for heaven’s sake.  Edward was unsure of what actions he should take here, if any.  He was struck for a moment how vulnerable Jonathan seemed.  He didn’t look any younger – his face was too lined and his tangled curls too streaked with grey for that – but exposed.  As though he’d had an invisible shield that only now had gone down.  It was probably true. 

He decided to see if he could move Jonathan up the bed a little so that he didn’t wake up in the morning with numb legs, and it was a lot easier than he’d anticipated.  Jonathan did not seem to weigh much at all.  A great deal of his size was exaggerated by the loose clothes he wore.

Once done, he headed to the other side of the condo to get some sleep himself.  This line of work meant long, long hours away from home, and one never slept better than in their own bed.

 

//

 

Except for Jonathan, apparently.

When Edward got up, Jonathan was still asleep.  He had not moved in the slightest.  Edward glanced at the clock on the nightstand.  Almost sixteen hours now.  He must have been very close to collapsing from exhaustion yesterday.

Or maybe he was dead.

Edward put a hand around his wrist to check, but he never got any farther than that because Jonathan sat up suddenly, wrenching his arm away and scrambling back.  His eyes went wide but were unfocused, and his breaths were laboured.  “What – what is this,” he stammered.  Was this an anxiety thing?  Edward had no idea.  Maybe his glasses would help.  He picked them up from the stand and placed them inside of Jonathan’s trembling fingers, but Jonathan didn’t seem to realise what had happened.  Edward stepped back.

“You’re at my condo,” he said.  “I didn’t want to leave you alone last night.”

Jonathan remained frozen for another moment, then slowly pushed on his glasses.  He looked around the room with caution, as though he imagined he were being tricked.  Edward moved back.

“You know where you are now?” Edward asked.  Jonathan nodded slowly.

“I’m making grilled cheese for lunch.  Do you want one?”  He felt like he was talking to a child, but Jonathan seemed to respond better to questions that only had two answers.

“I… yes.”  He was rubbing the side of his face with one hand and Edward noted with some resentment that his jaw remained hairless.  Wouldn’t _that_ have made his life easier. 

“The bathroom is next to the other bedroom.  If you need to take care of some things.”  Or maybe just be in a room with the door closed for a while.  He looked like he might need that most of all.  Edward left then and removed a frying pan from its hook on the side of his shelving unit.  It wouldn’t be a particularly filling lunch but it was all he felt like making right now.

He had fully intended to wait for Jonathan, but he was absent for at least fifteen minutes and at that point he just gave up and ate his sandwich alone.  He was attempting to puzzle out what Jonathan’s reasoning was when he realised he just might not like being seen eating.  That would explain a lot, particularly since Edward didn’t believe he ever had.  When Jonathan did come back Edward got up and busied himself with the frying pan. 

“I recall you being a lot more confident when I met you,” Edward said after he’d drawn that out as long as possible, setting down two glasses of filtered water on the table and sitting back in his chair.  “Was that a façade?”

Jonathan slowly swallowed the bite he’d been working on.  “Somewhat.  But I’ve… run out of medication since then.”

 “Why haven’t you gotten any more?”  It seemed a no-brainer to Edward.

Jonathan shrugged and picked up the glass in front of him.  “I can’t afford it.”

“What do you mean, you can’t afford it?” Edward said, insulted.  “I know how much you get paid, and I do have to split the money three ways but it’s not a small amount!”

Jonathan was studiously not looking at him.  “I have student loans.”

“Student loans.”

“I owe about seventy thousand dollars.”  The hand that carefully placed the drink down was unsteady.  “The only way to pay it off with any speed is to funnel all my earnings into my debt.”

Edward folded his arms.  From one standpoint, Jonathan was right.  Seventy thousand was a lot of money.  “You’re not going to be paying that back if you burn yourself to the ground, though.”

“Oh, I’ve done that already,” Jonathan responded.  “I’m just continuously learning how much lower I can go.”

Edward shouldn’t have laughed, but he did.  Jonathan seemed to relax a little, looking at him for the first time since he’d gotten up.  Longer, even; he didn’t remember Jonathan looking at him at all save for when he’d had to at the club last night.   

“Jonathan, I think you need to make room in your budget for the medication,” Edward said.  “I can’t pay you if you don’t play, and the girls get everything from music sales and distribution.  I can’t give you any of that.  I can try to talk them into being charitable, but they’ll just as soon stop talking to me at all.”

“I’m not asking for charity,” Jonathan said.  “I did this to myself.  It’s my responsibility.”  He was staring at the plate his sandwich had been served on.  His hands were gathered in his lap.

Edward leaned forward, his own hands clasped.  “It’s not charity.  I’m your boss and your manager.  If you’re living like you’re below the poverty line you obviously need a hand from me, because no one under my management should be in that position.”

“I didn’t expect you to say that,” Jonathan said.

“I told you.  I’m not trying to torture you.  My job is to work with what you’re capable of while keeping the best interests of the group in mind.  If you need a break or help, you need to come talk to me.  I’ll work things out, but I need to know about them.”  He had the sudden urge to put his hand overtop Jonathan’s, but they were still hidden beneath the table.  He readjusted his against each other instead.

“I will try to remember that,” Jonathan said.  “It’s hard for me to believe I’m not forcing my problems on others.”

“You’re not forcing anything on anybody by asking for help now and again.”

“I know.  But I still believe I am.”

This anxiety thing seemed complicated.  Edward was going to have to make time to look into it a little more thoroughly.   “I’d be a pretty lousy friend if I made you feel bad for coming to me.”

Jonathan looked up suddenly.  “I wasn’t aware we were friends.”

Edward hadn’t realised it needed pointing out.  “I wouldn’t let most other DJs I know into my house.”

“This has been an enlightening talk,” Jonathan murmured.  Edward stood up, stacking the plates and carrying them to the sink.

“I’m going back to the studio after this,” he called behind his shoulder, rinsing off the dishes.  “Do you want me to take you there or back to your truck?”

“When are you leaving?” Jonathan asked after a pause.  Edward frowned.

“After I’m done the dishes.”  He’d just said that.

“No, I meant… the city.”

Edward shrugged and slotted the plates into the drying rack.  “Tomorrow.”

“The studio is fine.”

Jonathan was, as usual, very quiet in the car and for the most part seemed to not be paying attention to anything at all, until Edward stopped and put the vehicle into park outside of a strip mall.  Jonathan then glanced at him in startlement.  Edward pulled the key out of the ignition.

“I have to stop here.  The girls will want me to bring them Starbucks.”  It was only after he’d put aside his seatbelt he realised he should have mentioned this to Jonathan first.  “You don’t have to come in.”

“No, it’s… it’s fine.”  He didn’t _look_ fine, but he could make his own decisions.  He knew what he could handle.  Probably.

Once inside the establishment Edward then had to stand in line waiting for the girls to decide exactly what it was they wanted, which they surprisingly didn’t know yet after all the Starbucks runs he’d ever made for them, and he was becoming increasingly impatient with them for their indecision and for the fact that they were forcing him to hold up the line.  Inconsiderate!  He was trying to do them a favour and they were making him look like a jerk.  Among a great deal of other things, apparently, according to the man behind him.  He seemed to be fresh out of a construction site, replete with bright orange safety vest, bestickered hard hat, and several coats of dirt, both fresh and long since caked.  He was also very opinionated about ‘the kind of person’ Edward was, and as usual everyone in the room was selectively deaf.  He was becoming increasingly irate and was about to abandon the endeavour entirely when the man behind him grabbed his shoulder and said something about his baby mamas.  The rest of it was drowned out by the sudden rage pounding in his ears.  How _dare_ this man touch him!  Didn’t he know who Edward _was_?  He was about to open his mouth, consequences be damned, when Jonathan appeared from God knew where and said, a lot more politely than Edward had been about to, “I think that’s… you should stop now.”

“You do, do you,” the man said, and Edward noted his face and neck had mottled with a very unattractive redness.  Jonathan nodded, stepping forward with his hands at the heights of both their shoulders as though separating them in a boxing match.  He was shaking even more than usual, and it was obviously an accident when Jonathan’s fingers met the other man’s shoulder, but that did not stop him from snatching up Jonathan’s wrist and shoving him backwards with violence.  Jonathan, weighing a third as much and being entirely unprepared, went down very hard on his elbows. 

It was funny, in a not-very-amusing way, how the man who had decided to move Edward out of his way physically had also decided being tapped accidentally was out of line.  The man stormed out, complaining about the clientele in that area, and Edward entertained a fleeting fantasy of going after him and reciprocating some of his intolerance before crouching down next to Jonathan.  He seemed to still be stunned, though because he had never seen that sort of display before or because he’d never been thrown on the floor before, Edward didn’t know.  Edward, unfortunately, had been the recipient of both.  Many times.

“You’re too old to be getting into fistfights,” he said, and Jonathan looked at him but his eyes seemed unfocused.  “Jon.  I can’t be here if they call the police.”

“Who’s calling the police,” Jonathan asked, somewhat faintly.

“I don’t know.  Someone.  Maybe.  Come on.”  He pulled on Jonathan’s arm and it took a moment but Jonathan allowed himself to be led off the floor.  Once outside Jonathan seemed to come back to himself, and he abruptly started walking away.  Edward threw up his hands.  “Where are you going?”

For some reason he had actually expected Jonathan to yell the answer back at him when he’d barely spoken over a whisper the entire time Edward had known him.  He sighed through his nose and stormed after him.  “Jonathan!”

Jonathan did not pause until he’d gone around the back of the building, where the loading doors and the dumpsters for the other establishments in the strip mall were, and once he’d gotten to the third door he sat down against the recycling container and almost ripped his glasses off his face.  By the time Edward got there he was pressing his free hand against his nose so that his breathing was very audible.  Edward did not particularly want to sit against the bin nor on the ground, but he spied a flattened cardboard box that had not quite made it in and sat on that instead, next to Jonathan’s bent knees.  “I’m sorry,” Jonathan said after a moment, so quietly Edward almost didn’t hear him.  “I couldn’t handle them staring at me.”

“Who was?”  Edward hadn’t noticed that.

“Everyone was.”

Edward didn’t remember the situation too clearly, given that he had been understandably distracted at the time, but as far as he recalled everyone had been pointedly looking _away_.  Maybe Jonathan was remembering it wrong.    

Looking at him, though, it was obvious it didn’t really matter.  He was still shaking, and his hairline was damp.  Maybe not a single person had looked, but Jonathan believed they had been.  Edward hesitantly put a hand on his shoulder.  Jonathan stiffened for a moment.

“That help at all?” Edward asked.

“It does when… when you do it.”

Oh.  Right.  Despite remembering that, though, Edward couldn’t bring himself to remove his hand.  He told himself it was because he was actually being empathetic, for once.

He wasn’t certain he wanted to know what that really meant.

After another few minutes Jonathan removed his hand from his face and put his glasses back on.  Edward had the urge to check his watch.  He wished he hadn’t; he did need to get going, but he was in the middle of something important. 

“I’m sorry,” Jonathan said again.  “I’d never… no, I probably did.  I’ve never paid attention to anything like that before.  I found myself not wanting to say anything.”

Edward grimaced and put his hand in his lap.  “Nobody ever does.”

“It was harder than it should have been.”

“Because of the anxiety?”

Jonathan shook his head.  “Because you’re my friend.”

Edward took a long breath.  “As long as people are complacent, guys like that are going keep thinking they have free reign.”

Jonathan said nothing to that, and Edward thought perhaps it was better to let him think about it.  What he’d done had been difficult for him, and Edward understood that, but at the same time it should have been basic human decency.  “Do you still want to go back to the studio?” Edward asked after a minute, and Jonathan looked at him, brow creased.

“Won’t the girls be upset you’re empty-handed?”

Edward shrugged.  “I guess they should have made their selections faster.”  They would be, but he wasn’t going back in there right now and he certainly couldn’t ask Jonathan to go in his place.

Sure enough, they were vocal about his unfulfilled offer of sugar in a transparent cup, though these complaints were cast aside when Echo noticed he had Jonathan with him.  She beckoned him with a crooked finger.  “I have a question about the new software you installed yesterday.”

Jonathan walked across the room and sat down behind the computer, staring at it for a few moments before looking over at Echo, who had sat herself on left side of the table.  He licked his lips and went back to the computer again.

“You weren’t going to say something about Asians and computers, were you?” Echo asked, leaning forward.  Jonathan firmed his hand around the mouse but didn’t seem to want to answer.  Echo looked over her shoulder at Edward.  “Eddie, what are we going to do with this guy?”

Edward shrugged.  Overall, Jonathan was a pretty decent man: ignorant about a lot of things, but he didn’t seem to make the same mistake twice.  “Just give him one of those looks you have if he gets out of line.  That should do it.”

 

//

 

Edward was busy the next several months with his other clients; the most he really interacted with his original DJs was over social media, where he did the promotions for their upcoming shows.  He simply didn’t have time for them, and they were doing fine on their own anyway.  When he called Query to let her know he was coming back for a few days, she was suspiciously quiet.

“What?” Edward asked, glancing up at the monitor displaying the time before boarding.  He was at the airport waiting to fly out and he only had so much time to complete this call.

“You want me to tell Jonathan you’re coming?”

He frowned.  “Why?”

“He talks about you a lot,” she continued conversationally, dropping to a whisper and pronouncing, “I think he liiiiiiiikes you.”

“Yes, I know,” Edward said impatiently.

“Oh.”  Her mood had been dashed with the spoiling of her surprise.  “Should I tell him?”

“I suppose.  He doesn’t like surprises.” 

Edward hung up upon the initial boarding call for his section and joined the line, holding his passport and boarding pass in one hand and his briefcase in the other.  There was something in the pit of his stomach he wasn’t sure he wanted there.  Not because it was altogether unpleasant, but because he wasn’t sure he wanted it there.

He was excited to see Jonathan again.

Not very much, though not for wont of trying.  He had more important things to think about.  Jonathan was doing just fine without him.

But he already knew Jonathan did _better_ when he was there.  Jonathan was not restricted to _fine_ when Edward was home.

It had just been small thoughts, at first, like wondering what Jonathan was doing or if he’d been sleeping all right.  Then they had expanded, into trying to imagine what Jonathan would say about some topic or making a mental note to tell him something later.  The more he tried not to, the more he thought about him, and he couldn’t even really identify why.  He just… missed him, and had spent some time in the past few days wondering… no, _hoping_ that Jonathan had missed him too.

And from what Query had said, it seemed he had.

Well.  He would work all of this out when he got there.  Maybe he had just blown all of this sideways after being away for so long.  He’d probably see Jonathan and forget what it why he’d been wanting to see him at all.

Probably.

 

//

 

He’d left the door to his condo unlocked and told Query to send Jonathan by whenever he had a minute.  It was time to clear all of this up.  It was time to figure out where this was going, and if it wasn’t going anywhere it was time to let it go.  He was sitting on the balcony and smoking a cigarette, which already meant his outlook was not tremendously great.  If he was nervous, it meant he wanted to see Jonathan.  It probably meant he wanted to see him a lot more often.  He didn’t know if he wanted that.

“My God, you have a balcony too?” Jonathan murmured, and Edward looked behind him.  Jonathan was standing with the edge of the sliding door clenched in one hand, and he was looking out at the city below.  It _was_ a pretty nice view, which was part of why Edward was renting it.  He gestured to the seat next to his, crushing his cigarette into the ashtray set on the table between the chairs.  It also held a small box and a circular metal container about the size of a circle made with thumb and forefinger. 

“Sit down.  I have something for you.” 

Jonathan hesitantly did so, seating himself on the very edge of the chair, and Edward picked up the container.  He twisted it so that the top and bottom halves were in opposite directions and opened it after a few moments.  Jonathan stared at it.

“Isn’t that marijuana?”

“It is.”  Not very much, since this was only an experiment.  He removed a rolling paper from the box and lined the contents of the grinder inside of it.

“You invited me over to get stoned?” 

Edward laughed.  He supposed it did look that way.  “No.  You’ve never done it before, then?”

“I wouldn’t even know where to get it from.”  He was watching Edward’s fingers very intently.  He liked that.

“We’re not getting stoned, Jonathan.  This is a strain of marijuana that helps people with anxiety.  Sometimes.”  He took his lighter out of his pocket.  “Sometimes this one still makes people paranoid, but we’ll see.”  He lit it and inhaled as little as possible.  He didn’t like it at all himself, but there was no way Jonathan was going to do it if he didn’t.  He handed the joint to Jonathan, who took it uneasily. 

“This is still illegal, isn’t it?”

Edward leaned forward, threading his fingers together.  “If it helps you, you’ll know why you don’t need to care.”

Jonathan put it to his lips and inhaled, but he seemed to not have been ready because he started coughing.  Edward told him he’d be right back and went inside.  He needed water himself to get the taste of the cannabis out of his mouth.

By the time he came back with two tumblers of water Jonathan had put the end of the joint into the ashtray and, surprisingly, had stood up and was leaning against the balcony with his arms along the railing.  Edward stood next to him and offered a glass.  He took it and drank. 

“You look better,” Edward remarked, sipping his own water, and Jonathan looked at him and said,

“The bar wasn’t set very high.”

Edward smiled and shook his head, leaning over the balcony rail himself.  “I can get you a license for that or a prescription for what you ran out of.  It’s your decision.”

“I should probably get one or the other from a psychiatrist.”

Edward tapped on the railing with his free hand.  “You _could_.  But then you would have to pay for a psychiatrist, which is probably why you never refilled your prescription in the first place.  You don’t have one.  You can’t afford it.”

“That’s right,” Jonathan said, taking another drink.  “But I don’t want you breaking the law for me, Edward.  This is my problem and I’ll -”

“It is not _your_ problem,” Edward interrupted.  “I’ve already gone over this with you, and I already have both a prescription and a license.  I’m just asking you to pick one.”

 “Let me think about it,” Jonathan said.  “I should probably do some research on it all first.”

Edward waited another moment, choosing how best to tactically present his next statement.  “How are you feeling?”

“All right,” Jonathan said.  “One dose isn’t going to do miracles, but… better than I was when I got here.”

“You were pretty nervous to see me again.”

“I was.”

“Is there anything in particular you’d like to do right now, given that we’ve smoothed that out?”  It was a bit of an extreme way to solve his dilemma, but if this didn’t give him his answer, nothing would.  And given both of their schedules, he just didn’t have the time to keep waiting and see what happened. 

Jonathan looked at him, suspicion creasing his brow.  “You sound like you already know the answer to that.”

“And if I told you I’d allow it?”

Jonathan folded his arms.  “I thought you already turned me down.”

Edward shook his head.  “I didn’t say that.  Not exactly.  Look, Jonathan, the only thing in the way right now of letting you kiss me is the fact that I’m unsure whether you understand the consequences of being in a relationship with me.  I think you do.  But you need to be aware of the fact that I’m going to get criticism from both ends, while people are going to be telling you you’re doing me a favour.”

“That would be the opposite of the truth,” Jonathan said.  Edward spread his hands.

“That’s something you have to be willing to say when it comes up.  I’m not asking you to enter debates on my behalf, but I’ve known too many people who said they were my friend and looked away when it was convenient.  I don’t want to deal with that anymore.  And I don’t want to deal with people who think it’s fine to ignore inherent differences.  You don’t get a free pass just because I’m your boyfriend.” 

He leaned back against the railing and rubbed at his brow.  “I know this sounds like… a contract.  A list of demands you have to follow.  And I apologise for that, it’s just… I’ve done it too many times.  Been with a person who says they’ll understand and next thing I know they’re asking me why I don’t ‘dress black’ and having nothing to say when I can’t defend myself.  It’s a lot of work for me.  I’m just… really asking you to share it.”

“That’s too much for some people,” Jonathan said.  Edward nodded.

“A relationship in general is too much for some people.”  He bunched his arms against his chest.  “There are things I have to consider that will never cross your mind until I’ve told you about them.  If you’re going to get defensive when I point things out, you can just leave.”  He didn’t intend to sound so bitter.  He knew it was best to say it upfront, because he truly was tired of finding out months later it was never going to work, yet at the same time he didn’t want to give Jonathan a reason to go.  But if that reason was the colour of his skin… it was better to know right now.

“There’s a cultural diversity seminar at the university,” Jonathan said.  “I’ve been sitting in on it.”

That was unexpected.  “You have?”

He nodded once.  “Not just for you.  The girls as well.  The seminar talks about a lot of things I’ve never had to think about.”

“Like what.”  Maybe he’d ask the girls what they thought about this.

“I never thought before about why so many of my students were female, but why so few professors were,” Jonathan answered.  “I just… accepted it.  That was life.  It shouldn’t be.  But it was new to me.  The seminar goes over a lot of things I never have to think about, but I should be.  There is one thing they are going to discuss in the seminar that I am very familiar with, however.”  He looked at Edward, his eyes nearly luminous.  “I know it doesn’t compare, not quite, but I suppose I should know if you’re prepared to deal with me.”

He frowned.  “With what?”

“My anxiety isn’t always quelled by medication.  And it never really goes away.  I get paranoid.  And clingy.”  He rubbed one side of his nose.  “I try very hard to keep it to myself.  But it’s a burden.  I’d appreciate help carrying it.  Or at least do me the favour of acknowledging it exists.”

“I can understand that,” Edward said.  He thought he could do that.  He couldn’t _know_ ; he’d never done anything like it before.  But he would make his best attempt until he did know.

“You said… you wanted things laid out because you wanted to know I understood the consequences.”

“Yes.”

His anxiety seemed to surge suddenly, because the hand he clenched in front of his mouth was shaking a little.  “Edward, I… analysing and understanding consequences is my entire life.  It’s all I think about, every single day.  Every decision I make, every word I say, every _thought I have_ , I agonise over the consequences.”  He looked at Edward for a handful of moments, his mouth uneasy.  “With you, for the first time… I can’t think of any.” 

Rarely did anything strike Edward silent.  But that did.

Jonathan stepped toward him, so they were only a few inches apart, and he laid his hands on either side of Edward’s face, very softly.  They were steady again.  “May I?” he asked, almost in a whisper, and Edward nodded.

Jonathan’s kiss was very soft, light and sweet; Edward had a terrible urge to throw his arms around Jonathan’s neck and return it with intensity, but he kept still.  Jonathan’s lips on his were so gentle but it felt so right.  When Jonathan let go Edward had to take several full breaths before he could speak.

“Were you nervous?” he asked. 

“A little.”

“You seem to know what you’re doing,” Edward said, trying not to sound _too_ surprised.  Jonathan laughed a little. 

“I’ve had a boyfriend before.”

“Oh.”  For some reason he found that somewhat disappointing.  Jonathan’s face gave the impression of having faded a little.  He turned back to face the balcony.

“He wasn’t very good to me,” Jonathan continued.  “By the time I realised he was taking advantage of my anxiety, it was too late.  I was already terrified of being alone.”

“What made you leave?” Edward asked.  Jonathan resettled his shoulders.

“I didn’t.  He did.  I was too afraid to leave.  Every solution I could think of made me want to lock myself away and never come out.  So I did.  I spent as much time in my office at the university as I could.  I extended my office hours.  I marked every assignment I received three times over.  I even slept there, sometimes, because when I was home I was too upset with myself for what I was allowing to happen I couldn’t sleep.”  He was picking at his fingernails now.  “When I was working out how to combine the infrasound with regular music, I figured out my solution.  From then on, I did all my research at home.”

“On him,” Edward guessed, hushed.  Jonathan nodded softly.

“On him. 

“He didn’t notice, of course.  He asked why I was working at home instead of the university and I told him I needed to be near him more often.  He liked that.  And not because he thought it was cute.  Eventually I figured out how best to combine the infrasound and what heightened its effects, but it wasn’t working fast enough.  So I left it on.  All the time.  I had earplugs for when I was mixing, but I couldn’t wear them all day.  At that point, it was…”  He looked suddenly very tired.  He was talking more quickly than usual, as though he didn’t want to be but needed to get it over with.  “I made myself very ill.  Even when I wasn’t home I felt as though the infrasound was enveloping me.  He didn’t want me taking medication – he convinced me doing so meant I didn’t trust him to take care of me – and I had no one to turn to.  I became so ill I couldn’t leave the house.  And it was sometime then that he left.  I don’t remember when I realised he hadn’t come back.  It didn’t matter at the time.  I managed to go back to work a day or so later and I was so noticeably different the faculty head sent me to a psychiatrist.  It took me several months to recover.  Not that I really did.”  He clenched his hands together.  “I swore off boyfriends for a while after that.  Though… he made it very clear I was lucky to have him.  He knew my pickings were slim.”

“You settled because you thought he’d be the only one?” Edward asked.  He couldn’t help but be incredulous.  Of _course_ there would be others!

“He _was_ the only one,” Jonathan answered.  “I am nearly forty, Edward.  I was past my prime a long time ago.”

Edward stood, straightening the kinks in his back.  “I can’t say I trust your judgement.”

Jonathan turned slightly, frowning.  “I’m sorry?”

“You don’t know what you are, Jonathan,” Edward said.  “Hardly anyone does.  How can you tell me you’re long past your prime when you just became one of the most sought-after psytrance DJs in the entire world?  That sounds like a prime to me.”

Jonathan opened his mouth for a moment but said nothing. 

“Look.  I can’t understand what happened to you.  I can understand that it did a lot to you, and you have to live with it every day.  But there’s a lot more to a man than what he can see on his own.  Are you past your prime?  Maybe.  Who says you can’t have more than one?”

Jonathan turned around fully now, leaning against the railing and folding his hands together in front of him.  “You’re telling me things I should already know.”

“That’s what friends are for.”  He put a hand on Jonathan’s shoulder and led him to the sliding door.  “ _And_ boyfriends.”  He went back to collect the marijuana and the glasses and paused.  “Do you miss him?”

Jonathan hesitated.

“I try not to,” he answered.  “Edward, I’ve… I’ve been alone a long time.”

Edward honestly didn’t even know why he’d asked.  He had no reason to be jealous of an abusive man, after all.  Jonathan sat down tentatively on the edge of one of the kitchen chairs.

“But… it’s you that I truly miss.  When you go away, I…”  He looked down at his hands and did not continue.

“You what?” Edward asked.

“Never mind.”  He was crushing the side of his jeans with one hand.  “I don’t want to say anything manipulative.”

Edward snorted, which in retrospect was pretty unattractive, and sat down on the table next to Jonathan.  “Facts aren’t manipulative, Jonathan.  You damn well better miss me when I’m gone.”

Jonathan actually laughed a little, which was nice.  Edward found himself wondering what it would take to hear it more often.  “I’m not terribly good with a phone, so we’ll have to hope the old adage proves true.”

Edward already knew that it would because it already had, and so instead of remarking he got off the table and put the glasses in the sink.  

“Edward, I apologise for getting into that right now,” Jonathan said.  “It wasn’t the time.”

“When would the time have been?” Edward asked.  He wasn’t upset about knowing.

“Not then.  It wasn’t a conversation I would have preferred to have after a first kiss.”

Edward turned around.  “What would you have preferred we talked about?”

Jonathan shrugged.  “Although… I never told anyone about that before.  I told the psychiatrist my anxiety had worsened on its own, which he accepted.  I was always afraid to tell anyone about it.”

Edward went back to stand next to him.

“People always ask why we don’t just _leave_.  As though I didn’t ask myself that – oh, now I’m talking about it again.”

Edward sat down.  “Maybe it’s just that time, Jon.”

“You don’t mind?”

“I don’t.”

Jonathan swallowed, closing his eyes.  “Even now I’m still asking myself why.  I know why.  I remember how I felt, and what I was thinking.  But I still… believe if I’d been…”

“You are what you are, Jon.  We can’t always be what we need to be at the time.  You just have to do your best with what you have, and you did.”

Jonathan was just sitting there, with his face in his hands, and there was no indication he’d heard.  But he didn’t resist when Edward used the arm nearest to pull Jonathan against him.  After a minute or two he sat up.  “I’m sorry,” he said, still through his fingers.

“You don’t need to say that.” 

Jonathan nodded and pushed at his hair.  “I… I’m working on it.”

  

//

 

Edward woke up with the vibration of his phone to find he was lying on his left side.  This was not terribly unusual.  What _was_ unusual was that there seemed to be someone draped on top of him and breathing softly against the back of his neck.  It took him a moment to remember why that could be.

Jonathan and Edward were about the same height, so instead of taking Jonathan back home Edward had just suggested he borrow a pair of Edward’s pyjama pants and stay the night.  He didn’t really want to leave Jonathan alone.  He remembered Jonathan sitting as far away from him as possible while he lay sprawled on his back, and either the effects of the marijuana or Edward’s semi-attentive state had bolstered him because Edward recalled him talking a lot more than usual.  He felt somewhat guilty when he realised he had no idea what he’d been saying.  He’d only been half-awake at the time, so it wasn’t really his fault.  But he knew no one had bothered _listening_ to Jonathan in a very long time, and that was part of what he was supposed to be there for.

On the other hand, had Jonathan done this in his _sleep_?  Edward couldn’t see him with the ability to just attach himself to a person of his entire free will, no matter _how_ much he liked them.  He must have been very starved for touch.

Edward could admit to similar feelings, but only after the recognition stabbed deep into his stomach.

He couldn’t linger here, however.  He had a flight to get ready for, and as pleasant and gratifying as having Jonathan draped gently over him was, he had to get up. 

Thirty minutes later he was showered and his hair combed and gelled back into waves, and he had eaten an apple and a granola bar and was looking through the papers in his briefcase.  Ah.  There they were: the prescriptions.  Jonathan had never made his choice that Edward recalled, so he just put both on the nightstand and pulled his suitcase out from under the bed.  He hadn’t had time to unpack his old one, and he often didn’t; this was his backup.  He carried both of his cases to the front door and pulled on his jacket, and was in the process of putting on his shoes when he realised he should probably tell Jonathan where he went.  He glanced towards the balcony door.  The sun had barely started to rise.  He couldn’t wake him up _now_.  And he didn’t like goodbyes anyway.

Jonathan would worry, though.  More than he already did.

He removed the one shoe he had on and went back to the desk, pulling the pad of paper atop it forward and removing a pen from the dark green holder.  The pen had dark green ink; he liked to use it for his signatures.  He paused before setting the nib to the paper.  He wasn’t sure what there was to be said.  How to say goodbye to someone whose role in your life had changed significantly in the space of a single evening?

In the end what he wrote was rather bland and said nothing at all, but it served its purpose.  He set the note on top of the prescriptions and, on a whim, pulled the sheet up from where it had ended up around Jonathan’s thighs.  His hair had, as always, fallen across his face, and as Edward brushed it aside he quite without thinking pressed his lips to Jonathan’s brow.  Jonathan would never know.  But it made Edward feel better, somehow.  A little bit.  For some reason he almost… missed Jonathan, even though he was right there.  Oh, it had been a long time since Edward had done any of this. 

He finished putting his shoes on.  Once he’d taken his cases into the hallway he set them down and closed the door softly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s note
> 
> This is probably wildly out of character by now but since they’re not actually supervillains in this story I don’t care that much.  
> Before people say, ‘Indy why did you have to get all SJW-y??’, here’s why:  
> When I went to university and changed my major to psychology, I took that cultural diversity seminar. I don’t remember what the name of it was, but something like that. And that’s what the professor talked about in the seminar: how minorities had to face things majorities never even had to think about. Including me. The seminar discussed race, gender, sexuality, and mental/physical disabilities. As much as this sounds like Tumblr at university, that’s not what it was. It was to show people things they were privileged enough to never have to see. So this thing I had Jonathan do was something I did, though he did it fully by choice and I didn’t. So if people want to know why that’s in there, that’s why.  
> The quote Edward keeps on his desk was said by Frankie Knuckles, a pioneering house DJ.   
> The story about what happened in the Starbucks is based on something that did happen, though not quite like that. When I was working at Tim Hortons, my store was in renovations for a month so the Tim Hortons operated out of a trailer. I worked the overnight shift with my best friend, who is Indian, and one night he was working at the window and there was a line of people there and this one guy started being racist to my best friend because of the music he was listening to. And I was afraid I was going to get fired for it or that something else was going to happen, because it was just me and him in a parking lot at four or five in the morning and nobody was around at all and the people in the line behind the guy were pretending they weren’t listening, but I knew I would be a really crappy friend if I didn’t stand up for him so I tried to. The guy didn’t listen and we still had to serve him because there was no manager, and my best friend never reacted and never said anything about it which I thought was sad. I’d never really seen that sort of thing before, or maybe I just never noticed it. Anyways that’s why I wrote that part how I did; it was something that happened in my life, I just basically moved it into a Starbucks.   
> Armin van Buuren, in one his alter egos as Gaia, has a song called ‘Humming the Lights’. He named it that because after one of his shows in New York, he thanked the lighting operator for his work, and the lighting operator said, “It’s great to have cool lights, but the crowd doesn’t go home humming the lights”. I think we would all go home humming the lights if we could.


	3. Part Three

Part Three

 

 

“All right, it’s time to get off me now.”

Edward was at home for the first time in weeks.  He had not seen or heard from Misophonia in those weeks and he should have been happy to be lying here in bed, his very patient boyfriend on top of him.  But he wasn’t.  He was instead intensely annoyed that Jonathan seemed to consist entirely of bone.  Jonathan was half-asleep but pushed himself off of Edward, which did not really help as he was driving the heels of his hands into Edward’s ribs to do so.  He fought off the temptation to shove Jonathan aside.  Jonathan would not trust him again if he did that.

He didn’t understand.  Why wasn’t he happy?  He’d spent the entire flight home anticipating being here and talking to Jonathan again, but from the minute he’d walked in the front door he had just felt… the same.  Everything made him feel the same.  That is, nothing at all.  It didn’t make sense.  Jonathan stood up. 

“You’re a grown man,” Edward snapped.  “You should be able to take care of your own health by now.”

Jonathan studied him.  It was easy to forget Jonathan’s intelligence, disguised as it was beneath layers of silence and anxiety, but Edward was remembering acutely just then.  Finally, he said,

“I’m not going to argue with you because it’s not really me that’s bothersome.  I could tell when you walked in here something was different.”  He pulled down one of his plaid shirtsleeves, which had ridden up as he’d started to fall asleep.  “Do you want to talk about it?”

Damn him for being so patient.  Edward didn’t want him to _leave_ , but he should at least have been _content_ to finally have his boyfriend cuddling him again, even if it did hurt somewhat.  It wasn’t like he hadn’t known that Jonathan was painfully thin before they’d gotten together.  He looked away.  Maybe Jonathan had answers.

“Jon… when you achieved your dream and figured out how to use infrasound, how did it feel?”

“My dream?”  Jonathan frowned and sat on the edge of the mattress.  “Infrasound… that wasn’t my dream.  It was part of my thesis, but my goal was largely to teach.”

“You wanted to be a teacher,” Edward repeated.  He was tens of thousands of dollars in debt for _that_?  Jonathan nodded.

“You don’t _need_ a PhD to teach at a university, but it’s very helpful.  I do enjoy research and so it seemed that bent of education was the correct choice.”  He grimaced.  “Unfortunately, I am not a good teacher.”

“But were you happy?” Edward pressed.  Jonathan considered his hands.

“I don’t know.”

Edward took his glasses off and tossed them aside.  This was going nowhere.

“The entire time I worked at the university was, quite honestly, a personal mess.  First there was the boyfriend, whom I met when I started there.  Then there was the obsession with the infrasound and replicating my anxiety for the masses.  I lost my way.  I entirely forgot what my goal had been.”

“If that was your dream, why did you quit to become a DJ?” Edward asked, throwing up his hands.  None of this made any sense at all.

“I wanted to teach because I didn’t think myself capable of doing much else,” Jonathan answered.  “I can’t do physical labour.  I can’t be in any position that requires customer service, or being the centre of attention, or a great deal of teamwork.  That eliminates… a lot of careers.  Teaching at university?  They gave me three classes a week to start.  I had office hours two days a week and hardly anyone showed up.  Nobody wanted to talk to me.  It was perfect, and my dream, but largely because I didn’t believe I could… it sounds canned, but dream any bigger.”  He licked his lips.  “So you could say no, I wasn’t happy.  My goal wasn’t to _be_ happy.  It was… to get through the day in one piece.”  He looked over at Edward suddenly.  “Why did you become a manager?”

Edward didn’t answer for a moment while he tried to think of how much he wanted to reveal.  “Do you know what Chicago house is?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“It’s a genre of EDM, like trance.  The original house music.  When I was a teenager it got me through the day sometimes.  I didn’t know how it was made and I didn’t really care.  I wanted to be the guy that discovered the DJs and booked them places they’d be heard.”  He put his hands behind his head.  “Of course, by the time I got old enough to start the music had changed.  Nobody was interested in Chicago house anymore.  I tried it anyway but nothing came of it.  I realised trance was a good way to go.  It comes in and out of vogue but has a pretty devoted following, so I went with that instead.”

“And you were happy?”

He bit the inside of his cheek.  “No.  Not really.”

“Do you know why?”

He looked over at Jonathan, though he was a little hard to see.  “Am I answering this question or are you?”

“You are.”

He took a breath.  “I guess… I never felt the same excitement managing as I did listening to the music when I was a teenager.  I used to close my eyes and imagine that it was me that put that DJ onstage, and the excitement I felt pushed me on day after day… but it never happened.  I never…”  He and Jonathan just looked at each other for a long moment.  “Am I doing the wrong thing?” he asked, unsure of why he sounded so… helpless.  That wasn’t like him at all!

Jonathan folded his hands together.  “I can’t tell you that.”

Edward sat up, retrieving his glasses.  “But this is your thing, right?  What am I supposed to do?”

“I told you.  You need to calmly and patiently evaluate yourself and your needs.  I can’t tell you _how_ to do that.”

“That’s not helpful, Jon.”

“Because you want an easy solution.  There isn’t one.”  He tilted his head a little.  “When was the last time you listened to the music, Edward?”

“I had a few samples sent to me yesterday – “

“No,” Jonathan said, shaking his head.  “Not because of work.  Because you wanted to.”

Edward tried and failed to pull up such a memory.  “I don’t know.”

“Maybe start there, then.”  Jonathan stood up.  “I’ll… I’ll get going.”

“You’re not staying?”

“I… you need to work through this, Edward.  I’m just going to be a distraction.”

“You’re walking away when I’m having a problem when that’s the exact thing you asked me to be patient for you about.”  He flopped back down again.  “Fine.  Go.”

“That’s not what I’m doing.  You’re upset and confused and taking out on me.”  Jonathan’s voice seemed to have lowered the temperature in the room and it startled Edward a little.  “Just minutes ago you criticised me for not taking care of my own health.  Disallowing you from projecting your frustrations on me is my doing that.  You can’t ask for my advice and then get angry with me when my solution fails to satisfy you.”

He had a point, but Edward didn’t have to like it. 

“I’ve been waiting to see you for weeks,” Jonathan said, much more quietly.  “You came in and said you just wanted to go to bed.  Fine.  I didn’t say anything.  Out of the blue you complain you don’t like me on top of you, which you have never brought up before.  I don’t feel welcome here.  And this is the one place I go to feel welcome.  I’m sorry, Edward.”

“And whose fault is it I can’t just text you?  Hm?”  Even as he said it he knew that was too far, but he didn’t care.  It didn’t matter.  Nothing mattered.  He couldn’t even figure out why he wanted Jonathan to stay, or why he wanted him to go.  There was just… nothing.  He just felt nothing, all the time.  It was wrong to try to get angry at Jonathan’s expense, but he just literally _did not care_.

“I read all of your texts,” Jonathan said.  “I even have answers to some of them.  They’re drafted.  Within a few hours of my receiving them.  I was going to show them to you so you’d know I tried.”  He turned away.  “I’m going to go.”

“Jon…”  Now he just felt _bad_.  “Wait.”

He stopped but didn’t look behind him.

“I’m sorry, okay?  It’s not really that fun for me to text someone who isn’t answering.  It’s like talking to a wall.  I know you have trouble with the phone.  But there’s no other way for me to keep in touch with you and I can’t stay here that often.”  He rubbed the side of his face.  “How about this.  We take a break for a bit.  I’ll try to get myself sorted out and you won’t have to worry about me taking things out on you.”

“Until when?”

Edward shook his head.  “Until I… figure this out, I guess.”

Jonathan nodded.  “All right.”

“Will you do me one favour before you go?”

“Certainly.”

“Can you make me a hot chocolate?  Nobody else’s tastes right anymore.”

Jonathan laughed and Edward felt some measure of relief.  He didn’t particularly _want_ to take a break from Jonathan considering they never saw each other to begin with, but at least he wasn’t leaving on a bad note. 

It took him about six minutes to make the drink, and he cleaned the dishes up before bringing it over to Edward, who had sat up in order to watch.  Edward was probably going to have to wash the dishes himself, because Jonathan did not care if they were spotless whereas Edward did, and that would bother him later but right now all he cared about was ‘accidentally’ touching Jonathan’s hand as he passed over the hot chocolate.  After doing so Jonathan planted one hand against the headboard and kissed Edward’s brow, and Edward was reminded of how soft and gentle all of his kisses were.  As though Edward were some precious thing to be revered.         

“I’m not… sending you away,” Edward said hesitantly.  “But… it’s better to do this than to just break up down the line because we can’t communicate long-distance.”

“Right now,” Jonathan said.  “I’m working on it.  I have the girls text me sometimes.  I almost answered Echo once.  That was when my phone battery died.”

Edward almost choked on his hot chocolate.  God Jonathan was funny sometimes, with that deadpan delivery of his.

“Might I provide my opinion as a medical professional?”

“Go ahead.”

“You need a break,” Jonathan said.  “Time in which you can reflect on yourself and decide what it is you’re missing.   And don’t rush it.  This is not a process to be hurried.”

“I don’t have the time right now,” Edward said tiredly.  “I can’t just stay home and cancel all my – “  Dammit.  Exactly the wrong thing to say.  Exactly the sort of thing he asked Jonathan to be mindful of saying.  But Jonathan did not react.

“All I am saying,” he continued evenly, “is that I do not want you to make my mistake.  Where you are was your dream.  Maybe it’s time for a new one.  Perhaps you just need a break so you can remember why you started this in the first place.  I know you say you don’t have time.  You may need to make some.”  He straightened.  “Good luck, my friend.”

 

//

Edward was on just about the other side of the United States when Echo called, enjoying a quiet moment in a bistro on a partly cloudy day.  Well, he was trying to enjoy it.  He still felt more or less empty inside.  He put aside his sandwich and answered.  “What.”

“Hey boss.  Who’s taking care of our socials?  I need to talk to them.”

“That would be me.  I manage social media for Misophonia personally.”  Edward took a sip of his green tea.  “Why?”

“We want to start a radio show.  We need to announce it and hype it up and stuff.  It was Query’s idea.  She wants to start with the liveset from Sunburn.  A lot of fans from India are excited for that.”

He’d seen that on most of the Facebook posts.  Query had quite a dedicated following all on her own.  If he handed social media for Misophonia over to Query and Echo, Query could even answer some of her fans in Hindi.  He should have thought of that on his own.  “Tell you what.  You guys can take over the socials.  But I have a question about the show.”

“What?”

“Are we sure Jonathan wants to do that?”  Just because Jonathan had left the university to focus more on being a DJ it did not mean he wanted to do more mixing than Edward had said he’d have to do in the first place.

“Nah he’s good.  He likes mixing, just not audiences.”

“All right.  I’ll put you in charge of Facebook and Twitter, then.  That’s all I have you on right now.”  Managing social media was very time-consuming and that was about all he’d been able to handle.  “You can put yourselves on Instagram or something if you want.”

“We already have Instagram.  We’ve got a hundred thousand followers.”

“I’ll bet it’s solely because of your sparkling personalities.”  Of course they already had Instagram.

“You know it, boss.”

 

//

 

As she’d said, the first episode of the radio show was the liveset from Sunburn.  It was pretty bad.  Jonathan was quite obviously not on the decks, and he hadn’t expected him to be.  The organisers had been excited to have Query playing for India and probably would not have cared if Jonathan and Echo hadn’t shown up.  He wondered how Jonathan was doing.  He found himself on that train of thought quite often, but right now he was more concerned than curious.  India was both crowded and warm.  It wouldn’t be _too_ hot, not in December, but the sun alone was not Jonathan’s friend.

He only half-listened to the set, because if he’d paid total attention he would have gotten a headache.  Query really had not become any better at mixing than she’d been when he met her.  It was the first Misophonia set he’d bothered even trying to listen to since… EDC Las Vegas, now a year and a half ago.  In fact, he couldn’t remember _any_ sets from _any_ of his DJs he’d actually listened to.  Not just monitored, or assessed, but… _listened_ to.

He suspected he was closing in on the source of his problem.  He didn’t want to think too hard about it, lest he force it out of his mind by mistake, so he tried to change the mental subject.  When Query’s set, if it could be called that, was concluded, he took his headphones off and stared out the window.  The awning in front of it dripped. 

He should have gone to the festival.

Query, playing in India for the first time?  She must have been thrilled.  It must have been the greatest day of her life.  And he hadn’t been there.  Hadn’t even tried to be.  Hadn’t cared about it beyond booking Misophonia there in the first place.  That wasn’t right.  He should at least have been there to share the _moment_ with her.  But here he was, on the other side of the country.  Just sitting.   

He picked up his phone and unlocked it, sliding his thumb down his contact list until he got to Jonathan.  He’d done this many, many times since he’d left his condo the day after they’d agreed to take a break.  He’d never written anything.  He didn’t know what to write anymore.  Every time he tried he just ended up reading through his old texts to Jonathan and wondering what the drafts Jonathan had written for them said. 

He could try texting one of the girls.  But no.  They were more interested in each other, always had been.  He was their boss, and they’d made it pretty clear from day one that was all he was going to be. 

When he got back to the hotel, a little bit soggier than he’d been when he left, he went up to his room and sat down on the bed.  He kept getting the impression he wanted to go home.  This hotel room looked a great deal like his condo, so it should have been comforting.  But it wasn’t.  He really just wanted to leave.  Jonathan was a bit messy when he came over, that was true, but at least it looked like he lived there.  And liked it.  Relationships were about compromise, even the physical ones.  As long as Jonathan didn’t leave the condo a complete disaster, it shouldn’t bother Edward too much if he left some things lying around.  That was part of living with another person.

Jonathan didn’t _live_ with him.  Why was he even having that thought?  Jonathan came over when he was home, sure, but he had no key, no belongings there.  Not so much as extra underwear or a toothbrush.

Thinking of it like that, it was no wonder Jonathan hadn’t felt welcome when Edward had been home last.  He treated him almost like a stranger.  Not intentionally.  But it was something he needed to fix.

After he’d repacked his suitcase he took his phone out of his pocket and opened it to draft a text.  For real, this time.  He told Jonathan directly he was coming back and when he’d be at the condo if Jonathan wanted to meet him there.  Usually he just texted Query and had her tell him. 

Sitting at the airport an hour later his phone went off, and he had twenty minutes before boarding so he had time to call whoever it was if that was what they wanted.  It wasn’t, though; it was a text from Jonathan.  Sort of.  All he’d sent was a smiley face.  Not the emoticon kind, either.  It was a colon and a right bracket.  It just made Edward sad.

Even if Jonathan had not looked at his phone immediately – which he usually did, because he was convinced it might be something important he needed to know right that second - it still meant Jonathan had spent upward of thirty minutes trying to think of a reply.  He had probably written and re-written an answer, deleting everything over and over again, and in the end the only thing he’d felt comfortable with sending was that.  It was unfair, what the anxiety did to him.  Made him too afraid to send a text to his boyfriend because he couldn’t be sure it was perfect.  And Edward had not helped matters before he left.  He had said it in the heat of things, and regretted it.  But it didn’t matter.  It was probably still ringing in Jonathan’s ears even now. 

 

//

 

“You weren’t busy, I take it.”

Jonathan was standing almost in the doorway of the condo.  He’d closed the door, at least, but he did not look like he wanted to be there.  “I… rearranged my schedule.”

“So I’ve been doing some thinking,” Edward said, removing three pairs of dress pants from his suitcase, “and I believe our break has gone on long enough.”

“Oh,” Jonathan said, somehow sounding extremely hopeful in the entirety of one syllable. 

Edward piled his shirts on top of the pants.  “I still don’t have an answer to my problem.  But it definitely wasn’t you.  I did discover an _additional_ problem which _concerns_ you, however.”

“Oh?”

Edward nodded, zipping that part of the suitcase closed.  “You don’t have anything here, do you.”

Jonathan blinked.  “Such as?”

“Anything.  Clothes, toiletries.  You don’t even have pyjamas here.”

“I like your pyjamas.”

Edward laughed and pulled a handful of pens from the front pocket of the suitcase.  “But they aren’t plaid.”

“They also don’t have holes in them.”

Edward put the pens on his desk.  “And how would you feel about having access to those pyjamas more often?”

Jonathan’s brow creased.  “I don’t follow.”

Edward unlocked his briefcase.  “How do you feel about moving in?”

For the first time since he’d arrived, Jonathan almost looked at ease.  “You want me to move in?”

Edward nodded.  “It’s the next step in a relationship, and I think we’re ready now.  You can say no.”

“No, I… I want to.”  He walked a little farther into the room.  “I have to admit my apartment is not quite this tidy.  I will do my best to be more mindful of what I do with my things.”

“I’d appreciate that,” Edward said, standing in front of him and putting his hands in his pockets.  What followed was a discouragingly awkward silence, considering the fact that they had just agreed to live together.  All of a sudden Jonathan moved forward and gave him the stiffest, most hesitant hug he’d ever received in his entire life, and it was adorable.  It was awkward but also remarkably adorable and Edward managed not to laugh, instead throwing his arms around Jonathan and showing by example how to do it right.  Because maybe he really _didn’t_ know how.  Who knew if Jonathan had ever really been able to feel joy before, or if his old boyfriend had really allowed him to express it.  Edward knew he was feeling better than he had been.  This seemed to be a step in the right direction.

He had some chicken and rice in the freezer and he put it on the stove in a frying pan and asked Jonathan to watch it.  He left for about twenty minutes to shower and then dry his hair afterward, and when he got back Jonathan was indeed very intently watching the frying pan. 

“Is it done?” Edward asked, poking at it with his finger.  It should have been by then. 

“I think so,” Jonathan said, and Edward did not miss the fact that he seemed a little distracted.  Doubtless because Edward was standing next to him wearing only a towel around his waist.  That would do it.  Mostly because it was supposed to.

Edward put his pyjamas on and returned to the kitchen to serve the food onto two plates, then invited Jonathan into the sitting room where he set the plates down on the coffee table.  They both sat down and Edward accepted the fork Jonathan handed him.  He preferred to eat rice with chopsticks, of course, but Jonathan didn’t seem to have noticed he owned those.  He still didn’t know if Jonathan felt self-conscious about being seen eating or not so he said, after swallowing a bite of his rice, “What are your plans for the podcast?”

“Hm?”

“The… radio show.”  It was possible Jonathan didn’t know what a podcast was.

“Oh.  We’re going to do an hour biweekly.  Mostly psytrance at first, but I’d like to branch out a little to progressive.  Maybe uplifting as well but I am having a little trouble with those transitions.”

“Progressive and uplifting,” Edward said, frowning.  “Why?”

Jonathan swallowed.  “I was only playing psytrance in the first place because it was most effective for the infrasound.  I don’t have a real _need_ to play it anymore, other than the fact that people are expecting it.”

 “You don’t like psytrance, then?”

Jonathan shrugged, which was about all he could do because his mouth was otherwise engaged.  Edward remembered not to look at him.  “I do.  Sometimes.  Not all the time.  It has a lot of negative connotations for me now.  The progressive and the uplifting… they’re good for me.  I feel… better, when I listen to them.  I never really paid attention to the music before, I just… put together what I was asked to.”  He paused.  “I find myself _wanting_ to pick the songs myself, to find them myself.  It’s… I know it sounds ridiculous but it’s _exciting_.”  He smiled at Edward, quite shyly.  “I think I quite like this job.”

“It’s not ridiculous,” Edward said quietly.  “I envy you.”

Jonathan dropped his fork.  It clattered off the table and onto the floor, and he bent over to retrieve it.  “You can’t be serious,” he said.  “You have _nothing_ to be envious of me for.”

“Your dream job that you didn’t even know was your dream job walked right up to you.  You _enjoy_ it and it makes you _happy_.”  God, did Edward want that.

“Not right away,” Jonathan said.  “I only enjoy it some of the time even now.  It’s going to take me more time and more work to get to the point where I truly enjoy it.  The day still has not come where I don’t want to sit down and hide behind the decks for the first half of every set.”

Edward tried not to laugh.  It was a serious subject, but his delivery was just so amusing.

“The day I enjoy it will be the day I don’t feel like hiding,” Jonathan said.  “I don’t know when that will be.  It may be never.”

“Don’t say that.”

Jonathan swallowed another bite of his rice.  “You’re right.  I shouldn’t.”  He pushed away his plate.  He’d had most of it, at least, but then he settled his shoulders into the couch and put one arm over his stomach.  He looked as though he mildly regretted eating what he had.  Edward probably should have thought of that when he served them both.  He stood up and took both plates into the kitchen.  “Do you want tea, Jonathan?” he asked as he sprayed the dishes off.

“What kind?”

“I was going to make green.”

“Please.”

That took about five minutes and when he came back with the drinks Jonathan looked about the same.  “You good?” Edward asked.  Jonathan nodded.

“My stomach sometimes forgets it’s _supposed_ to have food in it.”

 Edward shouldn’t have laughed at that either, but he thought Jonathan might have smiled a little into his cup.  “How was India?” he asked, leaning back with his own.  Jonathan considered his drink for a moment.

“It was very crowded,” he said.  “It was warm, though, which was nice.”

“I thought it was going to be too hot for you.”

Jonathan looked at him in confusion.  “Why?”

“You’re very pale.  Year-round.”

“Oh.”  He took another drink.  “No, I’m from Georgia.  It’s fairly warm there.  I’m pale because I used to have red hair.  A long time ago.  When the dinosaurs were still around.”

Edward snorted tea out his nose by mistake.  It was not the greatest feeling in the world.  He had to get up and retrieve a handkerchief from his bedroom so he could blow his nose.  “The dinosaurs, eh?” he remarked once his nose felt mostly clear.  “Did you have a favourite?”

“A favourite… well you see, they didn’t have names back then.  They also aren’t configured biologically to speak English, as outrageous as that sounds, so communication was… nonexistent.”

Edward was not prepared for that one either and tripped over the coffee table because he was laughing so hard.  “Oh Lord,” Jonathan said, sitting up.  “Are you all right?”

“Yeah.”  He stood up, wincing.  “You’re having a good day, aren’t you?”

Jonathan shrugged.  “You _are_ home.”

Edward sat back down, picking up his cup. 

“India was nice,” Jonathan continued.  “It was… like New York, but with more… intensity.  It wasn’t very clean, I wasn’t used to that.  I actually…”  He tightened his hands around the cup.  “Bhavya took Echo to Mumbai to show her around, but I had to stay behind.  There were too many people.  Everywhere.  I had a lot of trouble just at the airport.”

“I can send you back next year.  The organisers of Sunburn will be very happy to have Query play again.  She’s set there as long as she stays relevant.  Maybe you’ll be able to handle it then.”  He put his cup down.  “Who’s Bhavya?”

Jonathan blinked.  “Oh.  That’s Query’s name.  Bhavya.”

He leaned forward, perplexed.  “She told you what her name was?”

Jonathan nodded and sat back against the couch again.  “I asked her why she came to the United States to become a DJ.  It seemed odd to me, considering she was so popular back in India.  She said she never intended to become a DJ; she came here to get an education, and she was lucky to get even that.  Her parents allowed it because they have no sons, but they really wanted her to remain in India and wed a suitor they chose for her.”

Edward had forgotten that arranged marriages were still significant in some countries.  It had never occurred to him Query was supposed to have been in one.

“She convinced them to let her become educated, and to leave the country for school.  She has a master’s in electrical engineering.  But she didn’t go back.  She won the green card lottery and the festival was the first time she had returned to India since she left.” 

Why had she never told Edward this?  He’d known her for longer.  She hadn’t even liked Jonathan when they’d met and he knew her entire life story?  Ridiculous.  She should have told Edward all of that.

Then again… he’d never actually cared to ask.

Why hadn’t he? 

Come to think of it, he hadn’t really asked _any_ of his clients _anything_ about themselves.  He didn’t have to ask enough to look like he wanted to be their friend or anything –quite frankly he didn’t have time for that – but enough to show he had interest in them as people more than simply… his product.  Because that was what they were to him.  His product. 

Maybe that was his problem.  How could he be personally satisfied if he was just thinking of his DJs as though they were game pieces he was manoeuvering into success?  No one ever became _truly_ happy or satisfied through material things.  Maybe that was it.  Maybe he was onto something now.

 

//

 

In the morning Jonathan was wrapped around him once more, and Edward wondered why he’d ever been angry about it.  It felt nice, to be held like that.  And it was comforting, to wake up so close to someone who trusted him like Jonathan did.

He noticed something a bit odd, and frowned, taking Jonathan’s wrist from its position around his ribs.  Jonathan was wearing a bracelet Edward had never seen before, made with orange, blue, and purple beads woven through an elastic into the shapes of flowers with yellow centres.   Why would he be wearing something like this?  Did he have a girlfriend or something?  If he needed a little side action, Edward certainly understood given how slowly this relationship was going, but he would prefer to know about her.  Or him.  He supposed a man could have given this to Jonathan but a woman seemed far more likely.

Why was he thinking about all this when he could be holding Jonathan’s hand instead?

Jonathan woke up about a half hour later, and Edward had indeed held his hand while he waited but he had also been thinking about the bracelet, and once Jonathan had sat up and failed to push the volume of curls out of his face Edward asked where he’d gotten it from.  He looked at it as though he’d forgotten he was wearing it.  Or maybe he just couldn’t see.

“A young lady at a show gave it to me.”  His voice was scratchy and he cleared his throat.  “I don’t know what it means.  It seemed important to her so I don’t take it off if I can help it.”

Edward sat up, pushing the blanket over his knees.  “It’s a kandi bracelet.  People at festivals trade them with each other as kind of a… goodwill gesture.  She probably gave it to you because you made the night special for her, and she wanted you to know that.”

Jonathan considered the bracelet a little longer and then planted his feet on the floor.  “I like your hair that way,” he said, almost offhandedly.  He might have thought he shouldn’t say anything about it. 

“Thanks,” Edward answered.  “I always wanted to try dreadlocks but I had to wait until I was secure.  They’re ‘unprofessional’ and would not have helped my case as an independent businessman.”

Jonathan had nothing to say to that, and when Edward glanced over at him Jonathan was quite busy not looking in his direction. 

“You were thinking that, weren’t you.”

Jonathan scratched the back of his head.  “I was and I was wrong.”

“You were allowed to be a tenured professor with your hair like that.  The bar for professional seems to be set pretty low.”  ‘Seems to be’ being the operative term.  Jonathan sat back down, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Is this one of those fun things you get to think about,” Jonathan said rhetorically.

“It is.”

Jonathan leaned over and pressed his fingers into his eyes.  “I’m sorry,” he said.  “I know I say that a lot about these things but – “

“Just don’t do it again,” Edward said.  “It’s not ideal that you think that way in the first place, but as long as you challenge it I’m not too bothered.”

“Can I ask a question about it?”

Edward shrugged.  He wanted Jonathan to be mindful about his questions, not scared of the answers.  “Go ahead.”

“What if decide you don’t want them anymore?”

He shrugged.  “They can be taken out.  It takes a long time, but so did putting them in.”  He leaned across the bed to where Jonathan was sitting.  “Now _I_ have a question.”

“I… all right.”

“You obviously aren’t interested in maintaining your hair. At all.  Why don’t you cut it?  Wouldn’t that be easier?”

“It… would be,” Jonathan answered.  “But it’s not about ease or appearance at all.  It’s a simple way for me to hide.”

Edward looked up at him.  “Hide.”

“If my hair is obstructing my vision, I don’t have to see anything.  I can pretend nothing is there.”  He pressed his hands together.  “It’s not a terribly good reason for leaving it this way, but it makes me feel a little better.”

Edward nudged his shoulder.  “Go have a shower.”

“Why?”

He supposed it _was_ a weird thing to tell someone to do.  “Because.  Just go do it.”

By the time he came back Edward was dressed and sitting on the couch with a cup of tea.  Jonathan’s hair looked even worse wet and Edward was physically pained to see it.  “Sit,” he said, pointing at the edge of the bed, and Jonathan gave him a confused look but did as asked.  Edward retrieved a metal wide-tooth comb from the bathroom drawer and sat down behind him.  “This is going to take a while,” he warned, “but trust me.  I know how to deal with this.”

It took almost half an hour but he eventually had Jonathan’s curls detangled and shaped as best he could without the proper product, and he did have to say he’d done a damn good job.  He gathered up the pile of hair behind Jonathan in one hand.  He would get upset if he saw how much of it there was, but doubtless a large portion of it was just hair that had fallen out naturally and gotten trapped in the tangles.  “I’m finished.  Go take a look.”  He followed after with the comb and the handful of discarded hair, and he was glad he did because the look on Jonathan’s face was priceless.  Edward almost laughed because of it.  Jonathan was looking at his reflection as though he’d never seen it before in his entire life.  Edward dropped the comb back into the drawer after stopping at the garbage can on the other side of the counter.  “How is it?”

“This is… the best it’s ever looked,” Jonathan said faintly.  “I don’t think there’s even been _remotely_ a time when it’s looked anything _like_ this… I gave up on it so many years ago.”

Edward ran a few of the curls through his fingers.  “It’s a little dry and we’ll have to get you some conditioner for that.  Something to help hold it as well.  You can still hide behind it like this.  But having nice hair goes a long way towards feeling good about yourself.”

Jonathan almost laughed.  “I don’t know how that feels.”

Edward put a hand on his shoulder.  “We’ll work on that.”

“Thank you,” Jonathan said, turning around.  “I… I appreciate what you’ve just done.”

Now he was getting weird.  “It’s just a thing friends do, Jon.”

“I’m starting to think I have had very bad examples of those.”

Edward gave his shoulder a squeeze.  “Not anymore.  Come.  The girls are probably wondering where you are.”

As soon as they arrived at the studio the girls did accost Jonathan for whatever it was they had been working on, and it struck him suddenly how different this was from a few years ago.  All three of them seemed relaxed and with a strong joint involvement in their work on the laptop, and Edward felt a sudden stab of jealousy.  At first he thought it was because they were taking Jonathan’s attention from him, but no; if he wanted it, Jonathan would give it to him.  It must have been… that they were enjoying themselves, and what they were doing, together.  Whereas he had to go and do the opposite.  He had to leave for another state, alone.  Something he was increasingly dreading doing.  He’d never had a long-distance relationship before and Jonathan had just moved in with him.  Would they be able to last with Edward gone all the time and Jonathan unable to use the phone?  Would they be strangers when they were both at home?

If Edward was gone so often that he lost touch with those he was leaving behind, perhaps it meant he was spreading himself too thin.  He was taking on the work of several people in order to guarantee everything went as he wanted.  But the more he focused on his career, the more he felt his personal life slipping away from him. 

What was the point of being successful if he had to be so alone?

 

 //

 

Edward was at home a few months later, lying in bed and trying to sleep.  He couldn’t.  He kept staring at all the signs of Jonathan he’d left behind here.  One of his shirts was draped on the back of Edward’s desk chair.  There was a pile of discarded socks on the floor next to the bed, a stack of books on the coffee table, and a few dishes left on various surfaces.  When Edward had walked into the bathroom he’d noted that all of the chrome was marked with water spots, the mirror was streaked from where Jonathan had tried to clean it, and the towel he’d hung on the rack had slid into a crumpled heap on the floor.  Edward had not cared about a single one of these things.  He had thought he would, several times in fact, while he had been gone, but he had not touched anything Jonathan had left and instead had just kept staring at it.  Trying to imagine why he had put it there.  If he’d done it on purpose or if he’d just forgotten.  Had he taken off that shirt and crawled into a bed that he thought was regretfully cold?  Had he gotten shaving cream on the mirror and wiped it off thinking that Edward would be upset?  Edward needed to know.

But he wouldn’t know, not until Jonathan came back.  He was in Las Vegas.  Edward had gotten them back there with a lot less convincing needed, and Jonathan had been quite happy to go, or so the girls had told him.  Festival season was a little easier on him as a promoter and so he’d thought he would get a few days to relax.  And he was trying to.  But he kept getting the feeling he wasn’t where he should be.

Same as he had when Jonathan had told him about India, actually.  He’d had this same feeling, like he should have been there.  Not at the time.  But he did regret not going, and he felt as though he were about to regret something right now.

He sat up when he realised what it was.  Las Vegas!  He needed to get to Las Vegas.  He needed to be…

Jonathan had said he wouldn’t even have _gone_ to Las Vegas last year if he’d known there were so many people there.  And even though he’d been doing the circuit for a while now, this festival still had to be daunting.  Edward got out of bed and pulled open one of his desk drawers.  It held some of the wristbands he was sent by the venues so he could attend the sets along with his DJs; usually he just ended up throwing them away after a while.  After looking through the bands he had in there, he found the ones for EDC and removed them.  He looked at the clock on his nightstand.

He could probably still make it.

That was nuts.  He was _really_ just going to find the first plane to Las Vegas and rush to the festival when he got there?  No planning, no real knowledge of what was going to happen, with the chance that he might not even be able to find a hotel room when he got there?  Ridiculous.  His entire life revolved around planning things.  This break he was taking in his condo right now was planned.  He couldn’t just up and leave for Las Vegas.  That was crazy.

He had his passport in his hand now, though.  And he was thinking about how much it would mean to Jonathan if he showed up.  He was also thinking that maybe he was wasting time he could be using to finding and getting on a flight to ensure he got there in time.

He supposed it was a good thing he hadn’t yet unpacked his briefcase.

 

//

 

The whole way there he’d felt incredibly stupid.

Going to Las Vegas with no luggage other than a briefcase with his laptop in it already looked pretty suspicious.  It looked even more suspicious when he had to dig out the hotel he’d booked Misophonia at, and he had almost let slip that he didn’t even know if he was going to be able to stay there.  The entire experience at the airport left him wondering why he hadn’t been detained for acting so bizarrely, but maybe the universe was on his side today.  Or maybe everyone was too involved in telling that screaming woman that her full-size suitcase did not qualify as carry-on luggage.

He had to get a car when he arrived since he had nowhere to put his briefcase and he did not feel like taking it onto the festival grounds, and he was not at all dressed for this weather or this event but by the time he’d realised that he’d been halfway to Las Vegas already.  When he’d gotten home he’d just been wearing chinos and a dress shirt because he hadn’t felt like changing into his pyjamas, and that was not at _all_ clothes one wore in the desert. 

He had them on the same stage as before and, just like a very cliché movie he managed to step back behind it right before Misophonia was set to start.  He had made it after all!  He still wasn’t sure why he was here – he wasn’t going to get any work done and he was not that big a fan of what Misophonia even played – but it did _feel_ right.  And he felt _different_ , too, not that nothingness he’d been plagued with.  Maybe it was just the fact he’d gotten here half on adrenalin alone. 

“Hey boss!” Query yelled from the stage itself, and he looked up to see her waving at him.  He held up one hand in response and Jonathan turned around.  Or at least Edward thought he did.  It was hard to tell what with the robe he wore being so encompassing.  He put his headphones down and got off the stage.  Edward was about to ask him what he was doing when Jonathan said, “I didn’t know you were coming.”

Edward shrugged.  “Neither did I.  I hope you don’t mind sharing your hotel room.”

“I can’t say I do,” Jonathan said.  He looked back up at the stage, and Edward followed his gaze.  The stage clock said he was a minute late, but he turned back to Edward.  “Hold out your hand a moment?”

Edward did, confused, and Jonathan extended his first two fingers in a slanted V-shape towards him.  He realised Jonathan wanted him to mirror this and he did, and Jonathan pressed their fingers together.  When Jonathan indicated they were supposed to make a heart shape next he felt a bit ridiculous, and that lasted until after Jonathan had them clasp their hands together.  As he did so he reached into the darkness of his sleeve and pulled his kandi bracelet over their hands and onto Edward’s wrist.  Edward stared at it for a moment with his mouth slightly open, and when Jonathan let go of his hand he immediately went to take it off.  To give it back.  Jonathan put his hand overtop Edward’s.

“You made this night special for me,” Jonathan said, very quietly, “and I just wanted you to know that.”

What Edward did next was just as bizarre as everything else he’d done that night.  He tried to convince himself it was because he couldn’t actually see Jonathan’s face save for the stage lights reflecting off his glasses, but the kiss he gave Jonathan just then was the worst he’d ever given in his entire life.  It was messy, and almost violent in its desperation, but he didn’t know what else to do.  There was a feeling of incredibly intensity in his chest that he didn’t know what to do with, and all he could think of on short notice was to try to demonstrate it back to the man who had spurred it in the first place.  It wasn’t really working because Jonathan had not just stood there and taken it as Edward had expected him to; no, he had pressed his arms around Edward and taken Edward’s lips in his own roughened ones, and something about this had taken Edward’s breath away.  The only reason he could even tell Jonathan was nervous about this was that his pulse was strong against Edward’s chest.  Or maybe he wasn’t nervous at all, for once, and he was just… excited. 

Jonathan let go of him and Edward suddenly remembered where they were, and what Jonathan was supposed to be doing.  Jonathan went back onto the stage, Query giving him a thumbs-up as he passed her, and he looked at the stage clock.  He was two and a half minutes late. 

For the first time since he had begun all of this, Jonathan folded his hood back to put his headphones on.  He didn’t replace it.  He instead put his hands to the decks and started to play.

And Edward was happy for him.  _More_ than happy; he was proud and elated and… he didn’t think there was even a word for what he felt just then.  No amount of success or prestige or money in the world was worth this moment.  He’d been chasing the wrong thing all along.  Success was worthless without people to share it with.  He really needed to sit down after all of this and did so on the back end of the stage.  He was just… happy, in a way he couldn’t remember having been in so long.

Echo came up to him and pressed a pair of earplugs into his hand, which he was grateful for because he had forgotten his and his ears were already starting to hurt from being right behind the speakers.  When he’d put them in she said, not quite yelling, “Go stand with him!  C’mon, you two have been avoiding this long enough.”

“I don’t want to make him nervous,” Edward answered.  Echo pulled on his arm.

“I think he’s good for today.”

So Edward stood up and walked up to the decks, on the right side because Query was on the left with the laptop, and he looked out over the crowd in front of them.  He couldn’t really see them, merely flashes as the neon cut through the darkness, but he felt them there.  It was a loop, he realised; they gave the DJ their energy and he gave it back to them and this cycle of giving and receiving brought them all together, united them under the electric desert sky.  He couldn’t keep from smiling, just as many of the people below him doubtless couldn’t, and when he looked to see why Jonathan’s hand was overtop his all of a sudden he saw that Jonathan was smiling too.  Still as shyly as the first time, but he was happy here.  Query and Echo were over there giggling by the laptop, there was someone putting confetti into a cannon and looking quite contented, and even most of the security in front of the fence seemed to have tapped into this feeling.  Everyone had. 

For the first time since he was young Edward remembered how it had felt to sit next to the radio and listen to a man who knew how to chase the worries out of anyone’s mind with a breathless, endless song.  He hadn’t been doing the wrong thing, all this time, but he had been doing it the wrong way.  He knew better now.  He would not again forget the irreplaceable feeling that only resulted when he started to try humming the lights.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s note  
> At EDM festivals some people go there with bracelets, sometimes a lot and sometimes a few, called kandi bracelets. What you do with them is trade them with others or give them to people who don’t have any, in the spirit of the rave/festival, friendship, and PLUR. PLUR is peace, love, unity, and respect, which is a vibe any good raver should give off and be encouraging. I have two: one given to me at my first EDC Las Vegas from a Latina I had a good vibe with while we were standing together and one given to me this year, again in Las Vegas, from someone named Lucy who with her friend Gabe helped me when I was in trouble. The bracelets will always remind me of those people who wanted me to know we were connected because they cared for me. The first bracelet was given to me using the PLUR handshake, which was how Jonathan gave Edward his. Ravers do not usually give DJs kandi that I know of, but I’m pretty sure some DJs would keep it if you somehow gave it to them. Jonathan is aware of the energy of PLUR but he doesn’t know what it’s called or what it’s about; he just knows it exists and that the bracelet symbolises it. Jonathan knows zero about dance music history or culture, he’s just the DJ.  
> So anyways here in the third part Edward finally realises that the love for the music is why Jonathan and the girls were able to learn to work together, and why Jonathan continues to do something that makes him feel terrible half the time. To be clear: this has not cured Jonathan’s anxiety, I’m not going there with it, he’s just having a good day for once.   
> I was trying to decide what kind of hair Edward should have because I personally like Riddlers in general to have longish hair, not super long but almost to his (their?) shoulders. Then I saw this fanart of Lucio from Overwatch and he was wearing a white suit and he looked just like how I wanted Edward to in this fic so I gave him the same hair as Lucio basically, but shorter because of my time frame here. Again, if I overstepped or misrepresented something, please let me know and I will gladly fix it.  
> I’ve been to New York but not Mumbai. I don’t remember New York being people crowded but it was crowded with cars. The comparison between Mumbai and New York was made mostly from some Quroa posts written by Mumbaikar saying what it was like.


End file.
